|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
Some of you may have noticed my recent activity lately thanks to MLG, and given this post, I feel obliged to contribute something before disappearing once again. So I've decided to sit down and write down a technique that Protoss players can employ in the midgame/lategame which I've been working on since about January. Hopefully it comes in useful!
Background and Motivation (skip this if you don't care about my thought process)
If you play Protoss, you will have encountered the incredibly frustrating multi-pronged drop that Terran players love to employ. After being killed by this one too many times, I sat down to think about the options that Protoss players have at their disposal. Common knowledge dictates that Protoss do not have such harassment options as our only remotely potent one (warp templars) was nerfed. Protoss just don't have the same options at our disposal.
I don't know why I was expecting for there to be a Protoss equivalent though - after all why should there be? All three races are unique and hence one should not expect for the same techniques to carry over from race to race; some general techniques obviously so, but there should be plenty of race specific techniques that don't.
What makes Protoss unique? The warp in mechanic obviously. In fact, this trait defines the race. And warp in allows units anywhere, any time (more or less anyway). We should all be accustomed to the power that warp in gives to Protoss aggression and ill simply elaborate on the 4gate as an example. The 4gate with proxy pylon allows reinforcements to be warped in directly into the battle, whereas other races must wait until the units have traversed the map.
Let me extend upon this into the midgame. Zerg and Terran are constantly training troops and rallying them to a location for them to be used later in battle. Protoss, on the other hand, simply decide where they want their next wave of reinforcements to be rather than setting a rally point. There is no transit time, they just appear there. In particular, Zerg will typically have units coming from all directions (due to the many hatch nature of zerg) and Terran will have a concentration of unit producing structures in their main with units rallied from there.
The important realisation from this is that Protoss can put their units anywhere whereas the other two races have their units originating from a source - a scattered source in the case of Zerg and a concentrated source in the case of Terran.
Now let's look at what Protoss pros tend to do with their power to warp in units anywhere on the map. The short story is that they either use it to defend from harass, or they just warp in units somewhere as if it were a rally point. In essence, they are completely wasting the power of the "anywhere, any time" power of the warp in mechanic by treating warp-in as a glorified "train unit" action.
And so, we arrive at the Protoss 'shock and awe '
What is the "Shock and awe"?
The "Shock and awe" strategy (technically known as rapid dominance) is a military doctrine based on the use of overwhelming power, dominant battlefield awareness, dominant maneuvers, and spectacular displays of force to paralyze an adversary's perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight. The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States. Thanks wikipedia!
With the preceding discussion in mind, in an ideal world where would you have your units warping in if you had the choice? Well here is a typical minimap screen from a game I pulled at random.
I've highlighted 4 areas of significance. Orange is currently where a fight is going on. Blue is the Zerg's 3rd expansion, green is the Zergs main and pink is where most Protoss will warp in their next round of units.
So let's think about it. Given you have the ability to warp in units anywhere you want unrestricted by pylon power, where would you choose? Clearly, warping in at the pink location is going to bring the least benefit - you're not supplementing your attack nor being aggressive with your fresh units (and hence giving your opponent a headache). So let's rule that one out.
That leaves orange, green and blue. Choosing between these is pretty difficult! I see the strongest arguments for orange and green, but can understand why you'd also go blue. At this stage, which position you want your units in isn't important - the important thing is that now you're thinking that warping in at pink is pretty dumb, and why would you do that given you have a choice?
The Warp Prism gives you that choice. One 200 mineral unit suddenly allows you warp in at any location you have pre-chosen. What the shock and awe is going to employ is using the warp prism to warp in units while attacking, rather than using it while your units are not being active. This is the key difference between traditional warp prism use and what is being suggested here. But let's make this perfectly clear and set up some conditions for success:
The scenario
- You have armies of approximate strength (i.e. one army isn't going to steam roll the other in a fight)
- You have 6+ warpgates (more the better) and a warp prism
- We're in a multibase situation
The plan is:
- Warp in a 'final' round of units for your army
- Be aggressive with your army so that his army must take note and get into position
- Send warp prism to desired location (more on this later) and set into phasing mode
- You want to time it so that your next round of units will warp in as this sets up
Three things will happen:
- Your armies will fight. This means that you will (hopefully) annihilate the bulk of each others armies. The warp ins will be useful no matter where they are.
- His army will pull back to defend the warp ins. In this case you go kill an expo.
- Some of his army pulls back to defend. In this case you crush him army.
The first case is of particular interest as:
- If your warp prism is with your army, you might have enough units to overpower him right there and get a decisive army advantage.
- If your prism is in his expo, you might be able to shut it down since he needs reinforcements to clean it up.
- If your prism is in his main, you might be able to kill off his next round of units (vs terran) or kill his tech (zerg).
Let me make this clear though. If your round of warp ins get annihilated for no gain, meaning he still has his reinforcements, tech and economy, then the game is essentially over. This is like a hang bang attack in Brood War - it IS an all in. Fortunately, it's not that difficult to do damage and not die. But it's important to keep in mind that since you are warping in everything on the front lines (as you would with a 4gate) that if all those units die, you are left with no units (like a failed 4gate) meaning you are probably going to get rolled.
For the rest of this discussion, I will assume that both armies have engaged and the armies have more or less annihilated each other.
Where to warp?
Let me bring up this picture once again:
vs Zerg
I find that this strategy is most effective against Zerg because of how their reinforcements come from multiple locations, and that I have a surplus of minerals in most games.
When I was first testing this strategy, my idea was that warping in at the orange location was the best thing possible. After testing this against Camlito (aka Edge on SEA) I found that warping in at orange generally was useless. Why?
- Warping in more stalkers generally doesn't help if you dont have colossus or storm to back it up. For big army fights you really want to have the heavy tech units, not dumb stalkers.
- It was difficult to set up the prism in a useful location given the mobility of zerg
- Against mutalisk strategies, it would be easily picked off in battle
I would upload the replays, but they are on a very old patch so they are kinda annoying to watch. So while orange seems logical, it doesn't yield that gain you would expect.
That leaves the choice between blue and green. Again, I found that warping in at blue was 'good' but not 'great'. Sometimes I'd be able to kill the hatch, but not usually. And typically speaking, I wouldn't get many drone kills because they would just run away (and zealots suck at chasing drones). So there really wasn't that much return from the investment. So that left warping in in green.
And here is where things get great. By warping units directly into their main you suddenly have access to both their economy AND their tech - something expansions generally lack. Warp in 8-10 Zealots into a Zergs main while all his forces are concentrating on your army and you can easily snipe off his pool and warren, or pool and spire or whatever you like before his reinforcements come to clean things up. It means that the Zerg can't just go and kill you, and has to retreat home to defend. And lastly, the main is often the furthest away from the action. I think its a brilliant move and can often give you enough time to stall for more expensive gas units for your next major army.
So to recap:
- We engage with our army
- Simultaneously warp in 8-10 zealots or dark templar into the Zergs main with an objective to kill drones first, then tech after the drones flee
- If we trade armies and you do no damage with warp ins, we lose. If we trade armies and we kill his tech we are in a good position to rebuild our expensive gas units.
I notice that a lot of PvZ's have the Zergs looking to trade armies and then win on the remax. This strategy cuts that down by neutralising the zerg remax via killing tech/reinforcements. Plus this doesn't use up any gas as primarily you are warping in zealots to do damage! Yay!
Now all my reps against megalisk doing this got wiped  so megalisk, if you are reading this, please send me them so I can upload them here!!! All I have is this poorly executed game against Rayzorblade (high masters) - http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/plexa_vs_ray_1.sc2replay
Here is what happens - in pictures:
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/sna1.jpg) Here is a battle. While the Zerg is completely committed to this fight I'm warping in Zealots into his base: ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/sna2.jpg) I send the Zealots to kill off his tech - in particular his hydra den and roach warren: ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/sna3.jpg) Hydra den dead, roach warren will die shortly after. ![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/sna4.jpg) Battle over, but he's not going to be building any more hydralisks or roaches. Plus his reinforcements need to tend to my zealots, else lose the rest of his tech. This allows me to push forward and sentry abuse his split forces and gain a massive adv.
Here is another rep: http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/PvZ_FiwiFaki_into_Shoc.sc2replay
vs Terran
The same methodology applies. Warp prisms in battle typically are useless since you can't warp in storms anymore, but sometimes an additional round of zealots can help. Rogue expansions tend to have Planetaries, making zealot warps useless. So once again we look to warping in the Terran main.
We consider the following facts about Terran:
- Without medivacs, marines and marauders get destroyed by upgraded chargelots
- Terran units are really weak individually, but their power grows exponentially as they increase in number
- Terran are really vulnerable if you are attacking their unit producing structures
Hence, a round of Zealots in their main do a lot of damage (esp. if you keep warping in). Primarily you will be cutting down lone marines/marauders without any support while the Terran army is engaging your army - and Zealots should destroy them without too much problem. Your next target, imo, should be techlabs and reactors - they die quick and take ages to rebuild. You could go for SCVs, however, or things like Starports.
The important thing is to keep piling on the pressure in his main if you manage to kill his army. It's highly likely that you will be able to do terrible terrible damage if you keep warping in Zealots and kill off his reinforcements, one unit at a time. If you didn't manage to kill his army... don't dedicate too much else you will die to a counter attack very easily. Instead, view this one round of warp ins as a stall while you recoup your losses.
On June 18 2011 14:50 Plexa wrote:State was nice enough to play some off race games against me and I managed to use this a few times. http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/plexa_vs_state.sc2replayWhile I harass with prisms most of the game there are a few points where I'm employing this tactic. For instance, at the start when I pressure with colossus I warp in zealots into his main rather than to beef up my attack. Would warping in more stuff into my army have won the game? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. Nevertheless, state couldn't defend both places at once and lost a lot of SCVs. There's also a time when he's pressuring my base and when most protoss would be warping in stuff into their army, I warp in Zealots into his main. Right decision? Again, I don't know. But I think it worked quite well. You can judge the effectiveness for yourself.
What units do I warp in?
I've implicitly suggested that you warp in Zealots and Dark Templar so far. But let me justify that. Firstly, Zealots are cheap and have amazing DPS - so they kill shit quickly, which is exactly what you want to do. It also minimises your investment into the warp in if it fails. Dark Templar are also obvious, without detection or with easily snipable detection, they can do terrible terrible damage. Further, DTs can morph into archons which are amazing against Zerglings (the zerg remax of choice these days it seems).
Stalkers I would avoid because they are frail and predominantly a harass unit, not a do tons of damage quickly then die unit. I could see a case for them if you have blink, but that relies on you being able to escape with most of your Stalkers still alive. i haven't been able to get that to work... yet...
High Templar used to be great in this. Now they plain suck because they just sit there unable to do anything.
Sentries *should* be used as if you can perma forcefield the ramp against Zerg (not so much against Terran) then you have a free base to slaughter. However, given that you are already attacking with your army (and II assume, microing it) I don't think you have the multitasking to be able to pull this off. However, if you do pull it off - instant fame. Indeed, I reckon someone like Huk could do it but its not easy. Hence I avoid them, but I should get in the habit of trying to ff ramps.
But I'm only Gold league?! How does this help me!
Check the assumptions - it doesn't require any skill level to execute. However, I will say that it is difficult to get right and takes a bit of practice. But once you are used to it you should be able to do it most of the time. This is a technique that I think gives the edge to you in an even skilled match. It is a technique which places pressure on your opponent, and when you apply pressure to your opponent it means he's more likely to make mistakes, and the lower the league you are in the more severe those mistakes are. So I would argue that if you are in gold league, and can pull this off, you will probably will the game as a result.
Final thoughts
My mindset towards this is that it is a midgame all in. You are foregoing building up a second army and gambling on the strength of Protoss units in low numbers to cause enough damage to put you ahead. Being a midgame all in it's difficult to assess whether the tactic was worth it or not, in my experience I have determined that it is - and I hope that that remains true for you as well. I've managed to use this to great effect to stall for more gas units while dealing some solid damage. Given the current metagame of PvZ where Zergs are forcing army trades with blings and roaches, this strategy can be really annoying to deal with and give you those extra seconds you desperately want.
Aiur fighting!
|
This is definitely one strategy or aspect that will have to be explored in the future. In the last months protoss in general have relied to much on the stuff that they already know. Even to a point that i feel as a Zerg player that right now this matchup is heavily in favour of Zerg.
Now one thing i've already adjusted to is to build one spine and one spore crawler whenever i feel ahead, because DTs or any warp ins seem to me as reasonable ways to come back into a game when you're behind.
so because of the lack of stim i really find the terran drop otions much stronger, but Protoss will still benefit from using Warp Prisms and drops.
|
Nice write up! I saw Kiwikaki do something similar against Axslav (PvP) in the EG masters cup. Engaging the army and warping in zealots into the mineral line with a warp prism, it was really effective as there was nothing Axslav could do since he'd just warped in units to the main battle.
The next game Axslav tried it against Kiwikaki but it was scoutted and shut down.
I don't think it would be as effective vs a Zerg as the other two faces because of the general spread of overlords providing vision and the speed of zerg units. Thats not to say that it won't do damage and possibly win you tyhe game.
Protoss need to start using more drop play in all matchups, it's the one thing that Protoss really arnt utalising
|
This is very interesting, and I've seen it work to great effect in pro games. I wouldn't mind doing a bit of experimenting myself.
The only difficulty I see is that the protoss army is known to gain in effeciency when in a blob. Terran and Zerg are much stronger when it comes to attacking in small numbers. In other words if a T or a Z use their reenforcements to kill your reenforcements (basically your drop), they're being more cost-effecient than you are.
I am theorycrafting and I admit that any time you force you opponent to multitask, it's a good thing. However if both players have a similar level of multitasking, I feel like a protoss splitting up his units will always be behind a T or Z doing the same.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 06 2011 23:40 Malyce wrote:
This is very interesting, and I've seen it work to great effect in pro games. I wouldn't mind doing a bit of experimenting myself.
The only difficulty I see is that the protoss army is known to gain in effeciency when in a blob. Terran and Zerg are much stronger when it comes to attacking in small numbers. In other words if a T or a Z use their reenforcements to kill your reenforcements (basically your drop), they're being more cost-effecient than you are. Partly true. Gateway units in general suck in blobs. Whereas if you have critical mass of Colossi everything dies  what we're doing here is using small groups of units which add less to the blob than the heavy gas units so we're not wasting that much. Moreover, 10 Zealots are pretty good at killing small groups of low tech TZ units
I am theorycrafting and I admit that any time you force you opponent to multitask, it's a good thing. However if both players have a similar level of multitasking, I feel like a protoss splitting up his units will always be behind a T or Z doing the same. The key difference with this is that the units you are warping in are units that would normally not be included within your army. They would comprise your reinforcements or 2nd army. Hence we're not actually splitting things up - we're just sending absolutely everything at our disposal to attack rather than have them idling at home.
On June 06 2011 23:39 FlaminGinjaNinja wrote:
Nice write up! I saw Kiwikaki do something similar against Axslav (PvP) in the EG masters cup. Engaging the army and warping in zealots into the mineral line with a warp prism, it was really effective as there was nothing Axslav could do since he'd just warped in units to the main battle. Interesting.. I didn't think you could use it in PvP because your opponent should be able to defend with warp ins, but I could see things getting ugly if the the defending protoss is mid-recharge.
I don't think it would be as effective vs a Zerg as the other two faces because of the general spread of overlords providing vision and the speed of zerg units. Thats not to say that it won't do damage and possibly win you tyhe game. Actually it doesn't matter if they see it coming 99% of the time. Because you are being aggressive with your equally sized army, if he spots it and recalls his army it gives you free reign on the map. Think back to PvT - if you recall all your army home then your army is terribly out of position when the rest of the Terran army comes running into your natural. Same applies here. The strongest thing about this is that you're not sacrificing strength from your core army to make this work whereas in TvP the terran is, but that strength is also its weakness as it means you have nothing left if everything fails. Also, keep in mind that with Zerg their reinforcements are often coming from many bases and hence you generally deal with smaller groups at a time - and zealots eat lings :3
If you watch the (terrible) game against ray, you'll see that my warpins separated his roach army at one point which allows my core army to clear up his half army ezpz. And that lead to me being able to do lots of damage to his 4th.
On June 06 2011 23:38 TigerKarl wrote:
so because of the lack of stim i really find the terran drop otions much stronger, but Protoss will still benefit from using Warp Prisms and drops. Yea no doubt medivac drops are great and much easier to execute (don't need as crisp timing on the warp ins etc). But I would argue that this is just as scary when executed right.
|
Well written and makes buckets of sense. As simple and logical as this is, I don't really warp in units at my battles or harass while I battle his main army. I should probably utilize this more.
|
I was considering the similar idea, but i don't think i have the mechanics to pull it off yet
|
You know what, I used to do this against Terran, and it worked really good. Now that you metioned it, I'm gonna try it again Thx!
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 06 2011 23:46 GreEny K wrote:
Well written and makes buckets of sense. As simple and logical as this is, I don't really warp in units at my battles or harass while I battle his main army. I should probably utilize this more.
Why not? Because its HARD if you are supporting your army then getting the prism in the right place is REALLY annoying, if you are harassing then timing it so that you are being active with your army AND having the cooldown reach zero when your prism sets up is insanely hard to get right
|
If the two main armies annihilate each other, and you still have the resources to warp in at the back of their bases i think this is making the assumption that you are already ahead in the game thus you could win anyway by simply fighting the main battle.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 06 2011 23:57 Kuro Shinigami wrote:
If the two main armies annihilate each other, and you still have the resources to warp in at the back of their bases i think this is making the assumption that you are already ahead in the game thus you could win anyway by simply fighting the main battle.
Perhaps I assumed too much, but let me justify that statement a bit more. I find that in a lot of my pvz's that the Zerg will try to kill all my shit with banelings and at the end of the exchange we end up with no army each. The zerg then tries to remax on lings/roaches to exploit the lack of gas units and hence take the game. My reinforcements will be at home, not doing anything, and I'll be sitting there trying to churn out more colossus/VR/templar/archons - or whatever my gas heavy unit of choice is. This is designed to stop such occurrences by being active with those first round of 'expendable' units.
Let us remind ourselves though, that the units we are warping in with the prism would not normally be in the army. They would be warped in to the closest based and used for reinforcements. Your opponent would be building reinforcements too, so you end up even again. What this does is places that first round of reinforcements in his main (or in your army) so that they are actually serving a purpose rather than walking across the map.
Again, I stress how difficult it is to get the timing right on the warp prism so that you are attacking while warping in your first round of 'reinforcements' into his main.
|
United Kingdom36161 Posts
On June 07 2011 00:01 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2011 23:57 Kuro Shinigami wrote:
If the two main armies annihilate each other, and you still have the resources to warp in at the back of their bases i think this is making the assumption that you are already ahead in the game thus you could win anyway by simply fighting the main battle. Perhaps I assumed too much, but let me justify that statement a bit more. I find that in a lot of my pvz's that the Zerg will try to kill all my shit with banelings and at the end of the exchange we end up with no army each. The zerg then tries to remax on lings/roaches to exploit the lack of gas units and hence take the game. This is designed to stop such occurrences. Let us remind ourselves though, that the units we are warping in with the prism would not normally be in the army. They would be warped in to the closest based and used for reinforcements. Your opponent would be building reinforcements too, so you end up even again. What this does is places that first round of reinforcements in his main (or in your army) so that they are actually serving a purpose rather than walking across the map. Again, I stress how difficult it is to get the timing right on the warp prism so that you are attacking while warping in your first round of 'reinforcements' into his main.
I totally agree with this. Especially on 3 bases+ vs Zerg, I seem to find myself sitting on tons of minerals and no gas much of the time. Reproduction of my army is always gas dependent (contrasting vs Terran when chargelots are almost always good). It sounds odd, but 1000 minerals on a warp prism and bunch of zealots is actually a very low cost in mid-late game vs Zerg when it's gas I need.
|
Here’s a thought…build two warp prisms and load one with a sentry or two. ‘Harass’ an expansion first with the sentrys, but have it do hallucination so your army appears to be much larger.. your opponent should defend with a good chunk of his army if not all.. which lets you position your army between his main and his expansion..
Then once in position you do the real warp in at his main with the second prism.. he will be forced to engage your main army to try and stop the attack.. but you’ll essentially be blocking his advancement. Then if your first warp prism is still alive you can simply warp in more at his expansion.
|
PvZ:
I wouldn't recommend doing this stuff with Zealots and a Warp Prisma, because 1 Spine Crawler + 1 Queen will kill it. And on most maps good Zergs tend to get even 2 Spine Crawlers + 1 Spore, because DTs are that strong.
PvT:
As long as he doesn't have a Planetary 
edit2:
Storm Drops are great in both MatchUps though, because the Templar get energy while they're in the Prisma and a storm kills workers really quick.
It also protects your High Templar from being Sniped/EMPd
|
I'm actually practicing alot with warp prism and I find the very good expecially on maps like Shakuras (your picture looks like the my usual minimap lol) and Shatterd Temple.
But I've never tryed to warp units at the warp prism during a big engagement. I usually poke at the front and then when I see that the T or Z moves his army to defend I warp in to harass the mineral lines of the main and the 3rd and then I retreat.
If he tries to save the workers I can still poke again at the front and do damage or cut off the reinforcements that are going to the 3rd expo.
Thank you Plexa for the read.
+ Show Spoiler +Sorry for my bad english I hope you guys understand my post =/
|
United Kingdom36161 Posts
On June 07 2011 00:20 Rybaia wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Sorry for my bad english I hope you guys understand my post =/
Your english is excellent ^^
|
I love this post!
I would like to add that there is an ideal time to get a warp prism in my experience. Right when the robo bay is coming online, get the obs and then chrono out a warp prism, one warp prism has far more utility than one immortal and saves you enough gas for a cheap upgrade, half of an expensive one like thermal lance, or a sentry. I do it in all three matchups but have been lacking a strategy that allows me to utilize it extremely well.
|
This is the kind of experimentation protoss players really need to start engaging with. Stuff like this is already apparent at high levels but the knowledge hasn't filtered down i feel. If you watch macro protoss' such as artosis play you'll often seen double warp prism dt harrasment.
The situation described has its benefits as outlined, but i feel the real power of this strategy lies not as an all in but as a harrasment technique, on 4base usually rather than 3. Consider for a moment you engaged the exact same move, but rather than trading armies, you move in, start doing the templar/collosus/void ray dance with whatever tech you have, get warped in in his main, and just forcefield to back off. This type of damage can be done without the losses.
|
one of my favorite things is watching zealots punch zerg units. this tactic allows for that to happen.
i would add that loading up a sentry with the warp prism so that you can perpetually forcefield a ramp if the opportunity allows for it. it's better than warping in sentries because of the energy allowance, and one less sentry shouldn't detract from the frontal attack.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 00:15 Binabik wrote:
PvZ:
I wouldn't recommend doing this stuff with Zealots and a Warp Prisma, because 1 Spine Crawler + 1 Queen will kill it. And on most maps good Zergs tend to get even 2 Spine Crawlers + 1 Spore, because DTs are that strong. 3 Zealots yes. 10+ 2-2 Zealots, not a chance
|
Also -- I feel that since the general skill level of players is always going to be increasing proxying pylons in high level play is getting nearly impossible against good players. Post-pylon-radius-nerf I can't help but feel that this encourages to use warp prisms instead of a warp-in pylon, after all, you don't risk losing the prism if you slowly move it behind your army, and the radius is not much smaller than that of the pylon radius now! (plus it's not easy for zerg players to snipe early game.)
|
I guess you would prefer to attack tech structures versus zerg with the zealots. For example if you kamikazi down his roach warren, that's pretty bad for him.
|
On June 07 2011 00:25 marvellosity wrote:Your english is excellent ^^
Thank you ^^
I think that leaving an HT on the warp prism (like Binabik poited out) can also be a great idea.
You can storm the warkers or feedback the queen and then warp the zealots to finish the job.
Time to practice.
|
On June 07 2011 00:15 Binabik wrote:PvZ: I wouldn't recommend doing this stuff with Zealots and a Warp Prisma, because 1 Spine Crawler + 1 Queen will kill it. And on most maps good Zergs tend to get even 2 Spine Crawlers + 1 Spore, because DTs are that strong. PvT: As long as he doesn't have a Planetary edit2: Storm Drops are great in both MatchUps though, because the Templar get energy while they're in the Prisma and a storm kills workers really quick. It also protects your High Templar from being Sniped/EMPd
Zealots actually shred through queens and spine crawlers fairly quickly, and you will take minimal damage from walking to your targets thanks to charge.
Not to mention killing their queens would significantly slow down their remax/reinforcements.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 00:46 galivet wrote:
I guess you would prefer to attack tech structures versus zerg with the zealots. For example if you kamikazi down his roach warren, that's pretty bad for him. I generally go for drones/queens first, then tech structures once the drones flee. But sometimes kamakazi'ing tech structures can be worth it!
|
Ahh this is kind of like MMA style, right?
|
The more I think about it, the scarier this becomes to me... Thinking about Protoss opponents with blink/colossi/sentry, which can stall out forever against a zerg army, while his 10gates warp in a round of zealots in my base, and my most mobile troops just plainly suck against it.
not to mention the possibility of warping in 1-2 sentries that start to permaFF my main ramp and suddenly Im sitting on 3k/3k without a pool or roach warren.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 00:55 KimJongChill wrote:
Ahh this is kind of like MMA style, right?
MMA style, but for Protoss. And slightly scarier as MMA has to split his main army, Protoss doesn't. A better comparison is that this is a midgame 4gate on crack.
|
Since I probably dont have the APM to micro my Zealots to kill all the workers at at base whilest microing my main army and macroing how do you suggest I go about using the Zealots I warp in? Patrol, hold position or just let em do whatever they want?
|
I've always maintained that Protoss players have never used warp prisms to anywhere near their full capacity. 200 minerals for both a dropship and a moveable anywhere-on-the-map round of reinforcements is just far cheaper and far better than the Zerg and Terran alternatives.
There's always this myth with Protoss players that they need all of their army in one huge ball so that they can 1a across the map (note: they usually can, which is beside the point) but it's honestly far harder to deal with a slightly-less-big ball AND constant warp in harass, especially as the game progresses; that's why DTs are such a potent option against zerg players, for example. Oh, and remember that no other army is so assured of a safe retreat as a Protoss army if things aren't going well
|
i mean no offense to you plexa, but do you really know what the idea of blitzkrieg is? (couldn't take reading all teh guide)
but i read this "attack everywhere at once"-this is not the spirit of blitzkrieg at all
i won't describe it in full detail, but the idea of blitzkrieg is to use your full force to strike in small portion of the enemy frontlines, using tanks/mechanized infantry, as well as air-support, for its speed and mobility, the idea is also to catch the enemy by surprise, as he will not have had time to gather a "strong-point" at the location upon which you strike, thereby, you using the full might at this 1 point, will quikly strike through, putting your army in an ample posistion to fortify this area, and from there be able to quikly push on to any importent location (for instance the polish military main stanging-point)
google it for more information, this is very "simplified"
|
I love these little writeups, and I'll definitely try to include this in my play, seems fun.
|
Interesting that you wrote this Plexa. I'm a gold and this is how I play PvZ and PvT. However, unlike you, I didn't arrive at this style because I have some deep understanding of the game, I arrived here because I hate building colossi, but I love gateway and templar tech. Luckily, I've found that these tactics can be pulled off with low APM (mine's about 70), but it does take a decent amount of practice and understanding the strengths/weaknesses of a gateway heavy army.
Here are couple of lessons I've learned: (this is more for the low level peeps and most likely wont work at GM/master level, but w/e)
1. A gateway heavy army needs to be out on the map constantly posing a threat to your opponent. It also draws your opponent's attention away from their main (or expos depending on where you want to hit) since, as you said, this strat is really only effective against multiple bases.
2. Have more gateways than you can constantly produce out of. I think Hasuobs does the same thing. While he may have a couple of colossi, he really puts a lot of emphasis on gateway tech. Obviously, since I'm in gold, my fundamentals need some serious work, but having extra gateways keeps you from needing perfect timing between the last warp-in for the main army and using warp ins for a drop.
3. This applies more is PvZ than PvT, but remember to constantly clear spotters (OL or random marine) from your drop routes. I generally do this with a small group of stalkers.
4. Charge and Warp Prism speed are good with this style. You GM/Masters players are gonna have to figure out where to fit those upgrades in. I'm in gold so I always have money that needs spending.
5. Something I learned this weekend from ogsMC: In PvZ 40-50 blink stalkers can actually hold off zerg armies. I really thought T3 (colossi or HT) were an absolute necessity ALL the time. Guess I better work on my blink micro. Imagine if MC had warped-in units to Losira's main while all the slings and mutas where fighting at MC bases. Game over man, game over.
Final stuff: Once again, let me reiterate that I'm in gold, so I'm sure what I'm doing is not applicable on all skill levels, but at the same time, I honestly don't think my experiences are completely without merit. Personally, I hate having to defend drops from terrans and zergs. By using a warp prism, you're just returning the favor and IMO really making use of the "anywhere, anytime" army. Plexa is right, at the gold level, this is pretty much game ending if executed correctly. The problem of course, is executing it correctly.
|
I thought there was a difference between an "all in" and an attack that must do damage for you to come out even equal.
I understand why you say that though, as you will be in a bad position if you lose a round of units for nothing. Maybe you could expand during this so that if you don't do a lot of damage you at least gain something.
I would like to point out that with 1 warp prism it is possible to save 4 zealots if it isn't going your way, and with 2 warp prisms it is possible to save 8. I guess what I am saying is that I don't see the benefit of sacrificing the units when you could just have more than one warp prism. As a terran player I often drop with more than one medivac of units just for the added "building killing" ability.
|
yaaay Plexaa *Intornethug*!
cool guide! AWESOME guide/post/article.
|
Awesome write-up, definitely inspiring!
Do this more often
|
i think ill try it tomorrow on ladder if i get to this point against z :D awesome writeup!
|
when i do this or something similar vs terran lategame, what i look for is clumps of supply depots. if you are engaging the army and you are taking supply potential from the terran with zealots in the main you are gain a significant advantage over just targeting the rax. a barracks has 1000HP while a depot has only 400. yet destroying a barracks will force one rax to be remade which is the build time for 2 and a bit marines. but taking out a depot loses the opportunity to make 8 supply of units (assuming they don't have an excess of depots which few will) for less than half the time it takes to kill a rax. so i would say supply depots are a higher target priority than production facilities in late game PvT. that said i'm not exactly good so i might well be wrong somewhere.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 01:14 gnurk wrote:
i mean no offense to you plexa, but do you really know what the idea of blitzkrieg is? (couldn't take reading all teh guide)
but i read this "attack everywhere at once"-this is not the spirit of blitzkrieg at all
i won't describe it in full detail, but the idea of blitzkrieg is to use your full force to strike in small portion of the enemy frontlines, using tanks/mechanized infantry, as well as air-support, for its speed and mobility, the idea is also to catch the enemy by surprise, as he will not have had time to gather a "strong-point" at the location upon which you strike, thereby, you using the full might at this 1 point, will quikly strike through, putting your army in an ample posistion to fortify this area, and from there be able to quikly push on to any importent location (for instance the polish military main stanging-point)
google it for more information, this is very "simplified"
Yeah I do know what a blitzkrieg is. The 'attacking with full force' is the bit I was getting at here. Traditionally your warp ins sit there and do nothing whereas in this you're utilising them either in your main army (hence, blitzkrieg) or to harass. I get that it's not exactly the same, but it's the best I could come up with to capture the spirit of this. It's not really guerrilla tactics either, since this is really really in your face. If you know of a better military analogy please let me know 
On June 07 2011 01:07 Megakenny wrote:
Since I probably dont have the APM to micro my Zealots to kill all the workers at at base whilest microing my main army and macroing how do you suggest I go about using the Zealots I warp in? Patrol, hold position or just let em do whatever they want? I'd let them do what they want if you dont have the APM for anything else, although if you are only going to issue one command I would make them kamikazi on some tech.
On June 07 2011 01:44 rolfe wrote:
when i do this or something similar vs terran lategame, what i look for is clumps of supply depots. if you are engaging the army and you are taking supply potential from the terran with zealots in the main you are gain a significant advantage over just targeting the rax. a barracks has 1000HP while a depot has only 400. yet destroying a barracks will force one rax to be remade which is the build time for 2 and a bit marines. but taking out a depot loses the opportunity to make 8 supply of units (assuming they don't have an excess of depots which few will) for less than half the time it takes to kill a rax. so i would say supply depots are a higher target priority than production facilities in late game PvT. that said i'm not exactly good so i might well be wrong somewhere.
Thats the same reason I say target addons as a reactor takes ~50sec to rebuild (comparable to a barracks, but half the health)
|
why did you call it protoss blitzkrieg? this is a pretty well known concept on rts, anyway i prefer to drop/warp in first to move his army away from the front then move with the main force into a good position, and start to siege an important expo to force and engagement.
|
I think this can be incredibelly strong. Against Zerg though I'd actually rather go for the tech than the drones. If you saw the MMA (who is T, but same logic still applies I think) vs Losira matches in MLG you'd see MMA snipe spawning pools/baneling nests with drops meanwhile the armies are engaging several times, and winning straight up with it in at least one game. (MMA won the fight, but lost quite a bit of his army, and Losira was ahead in eco, normally that means Losira is in the lead, but with no spawning pool it means he didn't have no reinforcments and MMA could just push in and win).
Against terran I know this to be very strong, as chargelots just totally rip through MMM in low numbers, so doing this strategy and winning the main battle, even if very narrowly, will most likely win you the game. (Meanwhile winning a fight narrowly with a deathball against a terran going MMM otherwise often means the terran is in the lead, at least in my eyes, as the protoss will have lost your key gas units, the sentries, collossi and HTs, and you can't reproduce all of them on the same time)
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 01:51 Tsuki.eu wrote:
why did you call it protoss blitzkrieg? this is a pretty well known concept on rts, anyway i prefer to drop/warp in first to move his army away from the front then move with the main force into a good position, and start to siege an important expo to force and engagement.
See above - taking name suggestions
nvm found an appropriate name
On June 07 2011 01:52 Theovide wrote:
I think this can be incredibelly strong. Against Zerg though I'd actually rather go for the tech than the drones. If you saw the MMA (who is T, but same logic still applies I think) vs Losira matches in MLG you'd see MMA snipe spawning pools/baneling nests with drops meanwhile the armies are engaging several times, and winning straight up with it in at least one game. (MMA won the fight, but lost quite a bit of his army, and Losira was ahead in eco, normally that means Losira is in the lead, but with no spawning pool it means he didn't have no reinforcments and MMA could just push in and win).
While this is true, gotta remember that when Terran does this he'll have reinforcements at home ready to exploit the lack of tech whereas if you do what I'm suggesting you will have minimal reinforcements as you're sending them right into his main. Won't be as effective as MMA made it, but it will stall for time!
|
On June 07 2011 01:07 Megakenny wrote:
Since I probably dont have the APM to micro my Zealots to kill all the workers at at base whilest microing my main army and macroing how do you suggest I go about using the Zealots I warp in? Patrol, hold position or just let em do whatever they want?
When I warp in units to harass (or send DTs across the map for that matter) I just click move or rally the units into the mineral line. This way they walk where I want them, ignoring the first building they see and begin attacking once they get there. I can set the rally or move command and then pay attention to other things, as my APM is terrible. This works if your going for SCVs obviously. Not sure if you relay next to a reactor if they'll target it first or not. This technique has been working for me.
|
I think this strategy is easily countered if the opponent is paying attention. HOWEVER, what I really like about it is that it is relativly non standard and not expected. Therefore giving you the edge. Same goes for medivac drops, provided protoss is prepaired and scouting for them they do little to no damage.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 01:59 Perfect wrote:
I think this strategy is easily countered if the opponent is paying attention. HOWEVER, what I really like about it is that it is relativly non standard and not expected. Therefore giving you the edge. Same goes for medivac drops, provided protoss is prepaired and scouting for them they do little to no damage.
How is it easily countered?
|
This is something WhiteRa uses and calls special tactics.
However, if we're going for robotics and colossus. Is your plan to just add another robotics and pump warp prism/observers?
I can see this be good, especially if we evolve this some and make it like one warp prism with drops on every hatchery, wouldn't that be the best option instead of warping in just in the main? I can see it be better perhaps PvP/PvT, but could also go either way.
Also this thing is something that feels you need 3 bases for or perhaps more? I mean you seem to need some great economy to get this to work, because it's quite the huge gamble. Do you also research warp prism speed?
|
This is an interesting concept, but I doubt it's practicality against Terran. From what I understand against Zerg you're looking to take out some economy until the drones run away, then go after tech. However Terran units are the best in small numbers and most if not all of their tech is going to be near their production facilities or even attached to them. Which makes me question how much damage you would actually be able to do. This will be fun to play around with though. Great writeup!
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 02:02 eYeball wrote:This is something WhiteRa uses and calls special tactics. Maybe I haven't been watching enough white-ra, but afaik his warp prism play isn't the same as this.
However, if we're going for robotics and colossus. Is your plan to just add another robotics and pump warp prism/observers?
I can see this be good, especially if we evolve this some and make it like one warp prism with drops on every hatchery, wouldn't that be the best option instead of warping in just in the main? I can see it be better perhaps PvP/PvT, but could also go either way.
Also this thing is something that feels you need 3 bases for or perhaps more? I mean you seem to need some great economy to get this to work, because it's quite the huge gamble. Do you also research warp prism speed? Dno. I feel that colossus play in general is easily countered and that colossus massing games are dumb. Yeah there is a time and a place for them, but ultimately you're going to be ending up with some gateway heavy composition and storm (unless you are making one big attack and hoping that that works). Generally, I find that you need around 3 bases for this to really get going since you need quite a few warpgates to get enough units into his main to be annoying.
On June 07 2011 02:05 Quazy wrote:
This is an interesting concept, but I doubt it's practicality against Terran. From what I understand against Zerg you're looking to take out some economy until the drones run away, then go after tech. However Terran units are the best in small numbers and most if not all of their tech is going to be near their production facilities or even attached to them. Which makes me question how much damage you would actually be able to do. This will be fun to play around with though. Great writeup! I don't know where this 'terran units are good in small numbers' mindset comes from. Sure this is true in the early game. But once you reach the stage where you have chargelots and upgrades, barracks units are really bad without medivacs. *shrug*
|
Italy12246 Posts
It's so good to see you posting again Plexa, your ideas are always amazing! To this day i still do that mothership mid-game build of yours in pvp just for the lols ^^
Anyway, playing like this is imo the future of Protoss, and it's very bw-like. Terrans use harass all the time and Zergs have started doing it also, i don't see why we shouldn't. I think this might work a bit better in late (4+ bases) game, where having or not 8 ish zealots waiting back home after a battle isn't as gamebreaking as when you have 2 or so bases.
Oh also..."you crush him army" sounds so very white-ra, very appropriate :D
edit: regarding white-ra, look at his replay packs...i think it's in special tactics 1 here: http://white-ra.com/en/media/replays there's a PvZ on Shattered temple which he wins only through warp prism and blink harass, it's really cool
|
On June 07 2011 02:07 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 02:05 Quazy wrote:
This is an interesting concept, but I doubt it's practicality against Terran. From what I understand against Zerg you're looking to take out some economy until the drones run away, then go after tech. However Terran units are the best in small numbers and most if not all of their tech is going to be near their production facilities or even attached to them. Which makes me question how much damage you would actually be able to do. This will be fun to play around with though. Great writeup! I don't know where this 'terran units are good in small numbers' mindset comes from. Sure this is true in the early game. But once you reach the stage where you have chargelots and upgrades, barracks units are really bad without medivacs. *shrug*
It's a popular stereotype but I agree, without medivac support and any upgrades on your gateway units, I think the Protoss will have the advantage.
Also, like the updated name ^^
|
I think there are a few requirements to use this, and two situations where you want to use it:
You want to have one or several of a list of things to strengthen the tactic:
additional gateways (6+...the more units you can warp in at once the better. You don't want your warp-prism to loiter, that way you can warp in more later, or fly it to the next expansion and start on that when his army defends first attack)
zealot speed, attack upgrade, or dark templars - all can be useful additions. Even if they have detection the attack for zealots is so high, 6 DTs can kill a lotta buildings quickly before units arrive
multiple warp prisms: can be useful. You don't even have to use all at once. Maybe one of the bases is more defended than you thought...you can warp all your units at second prism. You're not commited to splitting your army like a terran or zerg would be.
When do you want to use this?
1) slow down enemy attack. Massive marine ball incoming and colossi not ready yet? Have no fear, pull them back to defend their base to buy yourself some time (note: doing this before army leaves can waste money to put you behind)
2) terran / protoss is turtling
3) You have a better economy than them. Use this to attrition them and help keep them from expanding while you 'get more ahead'
4) They're spread out and can't defend multiple points. This may require 3-base, but some bases with a far natural or a slow army can still exploit this.
Essentially the same rules apply to any other races harass. Used effectively can keep your opponent on their back foot. I feel this and pheonix harass are Protoss' two best choices, and this is far safer and more flexible (only 200 mineral commitment)
|
Special tactics was actually a BW thing. I like this idea of using 1-2 warp prisms as an engagement tool late in the game to try and split up the opponents forces. I really wanna try it with blink stalkers, just because it sounds and seems like it should be awesome. If they know you have blink and they try and corral the stalkers you can even take advantage of that because they are usually forced to split between high and low ground. One thing I like about warp prisms now, often I will drop a mineral line with some zeals, get 1-2 kills before they run, then just pick up my 4 zeals and run (like a Terran drop). With another drop ship, or maybe warp prism speed, that would be a great way to drop more than one spot on a +2 base enemy.
|
Let me rephrase my statement. I think it can easily be "dealt with" from a Terran perspective provided the Terran player is paying attention to the minimap.
I'll use the example of a Medivac drops vs Protoss. Most terrans will drop w/ one or two medivacs while using their main army to poke at the front against a protoss. If protoss has some well-placed Pylons in the pathing direction of the typical medivac drop and the protoss is paying attention to the minimap the drops can easily be dealt with.
Now in the reverse roll, if a terran uses a sensor tower, scan or even supply depots/turrets like a protoss would use pylons/cannons to scout it properly, and have proper minimap control they could bring enough a small group of units, possibly supplemented by a few scvs from the mineral line to "deal with" it. I personally (having encountered similar drops before mid-game) peeled off one viking, 6 marines, one marauder and one medivac. I peeled off 1/2 of my mining scvs and dealt with the drop. After it was thwarted I promptly built a sensor tower to ensure i caught it sooner next time. In the case I’m referring too it was 6 zealots (supported by 6 WG) warped in because there was no part of my main that was not visible. My opponent could not warp in a second round of zealots to support the first as I had spotted it already.
With that said, I'm not trying to argue, just trying to contribute to the thread, this is not a common strategy for protoss so I don’t see a terran being that well prepared for it. Thats why I say I think it can easily be dealt with IF prepared, with proper eyes on the minimap.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 02:14 Perfect wrote:
Let me rephrase my statement. I think it can easily be "dealt with" from a Terran perspective provided the Terran player is paying attention to the minimap.
I'll use the example of a Medivac drops vs Protoss. Most terrans will drop w/ one or two medivacs while using their main army to poke at the front against a protoss. If protoss has some well-placed Pylons in the pathing direction of the typical medivac drop and the protoss is paying attention to the minimap the drops can easily be dealt with.
Now in the reverse roll, if a terran uses a sensor tower, scan or even supply depots/turrets like a protoss would use pylons/cannons to scout it properly, and have proper minimap control they could bring enough a small group of units, possibly supplemented by a few scvs from the mineral line to "deal with" it. I personally (having encountered similar drops before mid-game) peeled off one viking, 6 marines, one marauder and one medivac. I peeled off 1/2 of my mining scvs and dealt with the drop. After it was thwarted I promptly built a sensor tower to ensure i caught it sooner next time. In the case I’m referring too it was 6 zealots (supported by 6 WG) warped in because there was no part of my main that was not visible. My opponent could not warp in a second round of zealots to support the first as I had spotted it already.
With that said, I'm not trying to argue, just trying to contribute to the thread, this is not a common strategy for protoss so I don’t see a terran being that well prepared for it. Thats why I say I think it can easily be dealt with IF prepared, with proper eyes on the minimap.
Okay in that case I agree with you. Proper recon with an observer is probably necessary to make sure you're hitting the right places against Terran.
On June 07 2011 02:11 Teoita wrote:
It's so good to see you posting again Plexa, your ideas are always amazing! To this day i still do that mothership mid-game build of yours in pvp just for the lols ^^
just for the lols? man with colo going out of style in pvp motherships are definitely where the matchup is going to end up :D
|
what happened to blitzcreig?
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 02:21 burn man wrote:
what happened to blitzcreig?
This name is more appropriate
|
Thanks alot Plexa, i will definatly try this!
|
ive been nonchalantly trying this out for a while now but your article convinced me to put more serious thought into it thanks
|
Plexa, how do you deal with terran going "Oh shit" , followed by a doomdrop into a base race? This is my "normal" reaction to it (less of a doom drop and more like 3-5 medics full), following into a game of cat and mouse?
I'll see if I have the replay of the game to provide details...
|
Hi Plexa ;p
I miss the shuttle but he couldn't carry a whole round of units anyways. At least he could take a beating.
How do you feel about carrying in two Templar with ready storms and warping in the round of zealots after?
I suppose it makes your army trading business less likely to end in your favour and also puts another toll on your multitasking abilities but the possibility for damage is appealing.
Thinking vs zerg mostly, it could do more damage.
Pick up Templar and leave or make them an archon.
Do you stick around for a second warp in round or save your prism?
I can see when both options would be good.
Thanks for the write up. please dont disappear completely forever.
|
Shock and Awe was not developed (with exception of the name itself) in 1996, it was first likely recorded in the Art of War (which was supposedly written by Sun Tzu) and was used on the battlefield before that. Drawing your opponent to position A (and possibly engaging them), then attacking position B (which is lightly or undefended) is not a new doctrine.
That said, dropping in general for Protoss can be quite underwhelming when compared to Zerg or Terran drops.
For Zerg, since they already have lots of Overlords, they can basically carry their whole army anywhere they want with two upgrades. They also have Nydus networks and the creep mechanic (in addition to having units with a high base movement speed) allows for them to traverse the map quite quickly.
For Terran, if they plan to build a Barracks army (often the case against Protoss), they need medivacs to heal their units and to use stim effectively, so dropping simply becomes a bonus then. Furthermore, because their Barracks units have very high DPS, they can be dropped in small numbers effectively, because they can stim and easily pick off probes or buildings.
For the Protoss, the Warp Prism is not a unit they already get, or a required unit. It takes away time from the important Robo Facility and means this strategy is unlikely to work with Colossus in general (since you'll have less warpgates if your going Colossus and you'll also be cutting into Colossus Production to fit a Warp Prism out).
So you're stuck with the Gateway units when it comes to drops, which aren't bad, quite the opposite, but when dropped in numbers the damage they do is very limited compared to Terran, and less than even Zerg drops. Stalkers and Sentries aren't high damage dealers in general, so you wouldn't want to warp them in. But Zealots are melee, and while there DPS is decent, it does suffer vs buildings with armor since they have two attack. Also 4 stimmed Marauders does the job at killing buildings much better, just like 8 stimmed Marines does the job of killing workers better. Dark Templars are expensive, and are the best option but since they are cloaked they can often reach their target unopposed to begin with. Generally the detection surrounds the target itself. Also since Amulet was removed, it makes no sense to warp in High Templars.
Finally, since Zerg spreads creep and Overlords around the map, and since Terran has sensor towers (which are incredibly underused) it is difficult to sneak a drop in and then get the Warp Prism out without losing it.
Thus, for Protoss drops are the not only the most difficult, but also the least effective. This doesn't mean they should not be included in our play, but I would argue not at the expense of Colossus, and our entire strategy should not be based around them. Rather they should be used as reactionary measure (ie my opponent doesn't have a sensor tower and is pushing with tanks slowly, let me drop some Zealots in his base).
So while Protoss can put units anywhere, the fact these units deal low DPS in general make them a poor choice for harrassment, and as mentioned Dark Templars can often reach their target unopposed since the detection generally surrounds the target itself. So Warp Prism play, while it can be effective, is a strategy that has limited uses for Protoss. I'd rate Warp Prisms more valuable than Carriers, and perhaps equal to Motherships.
|
This is great.. thanks. I think i'll start making a warp prism in that awkward time my robo isn't building anything between the obs and first collosus in PvT.
|
As a protoss player I feel that often time in battles the extra warp in is instrumental to "pull ahead" of a big battle.
Dropping 4 chargelots just doesnt seem to have the "umph" of 8 stimmed marines (unless opponent fails to run his workers away). If you spend 6 warp-ins then that is another 6 units that are potentially fighting the front lines.
Warp prism+HT/DTs I feel are still very powerful.
I expect HotS to replace the warp prism with something else.
|
This method also increases the Prism's drop capacity to whatever number of gateways you have + 4 small. 4 gateways could drop 8 DTs, or 4 DTs and 4 zealots. etc. (You just won't be able to get them all out alive unless you can blink the stalkers away easily).
A prism can also carry a single collo right? You're probably better off at having that at your front line though. Warping in some sentries and dropping off some charged HTs could also completely destroy an expansions mining capacity by killing off its entire worker population (FF the worker's exit, then storm).
I started training one or two prisms and getting the speed after lances are done. I have them floating around the frontlines just behind the engagements, as they act like a moving forward pylon which you can retreat quickly. A forward pylon will die if your army gets pushed back a little bit, and it means you can't retreat your warp point if necessary (warping in zealots in the middle of a lot of roaches is never a good idea).
Not to mention it allows striking at rocked bases really easily. I love the idea.
|
Plexa fighting! Glad to see you still around ^_____^ This guide is a fantastic dive into an effective strategy that goes above and beyond the protoss death-ball. I'll be directing the protoss players I know to this page, and thank you for taking the time to write this up.
|
My mindset towards this is that it is a midgame all in. You are foregoing building up a second army and gambling on the strength of Protoss units in low numbers to cause enough damage to put you ahead. Being a midgame all in it's difficult to assess whether the tactic was worth it or not, in my experience I have determined that it is - and I hope that that remains true for you as well. I've managed to use this to great effect to stall for more gas units while dealing some solid damage. Given the current metagame of PvZ where Zergs are forcing army trades with blings and roaches, this strategy can be really annoying to deal with and give you those extra seconds you desperately want.
Funnily enough, these types of tactics work so well against Protoss that even Protoss can use it well against other Protoss! Other than DT's and the occasional Zealot hitman crew sniping a hatchery, I've hadn't had that much success with drops in ZvP.
I find due to the barracks system, Terran has a much easier time defending drops (hear me out!) than Protoss, it is often easy to get caught without warpgates after using them to create units half way across the map but Terrans method of creation is much more fluid, when you drop, in most cases there are units being rallied or created that are not far away, combine this with SCV's and the raw DPS of bio units means they can clear up Protoss drops quickly. PF's also mark it hard to even drop expansions at all :/ though you can be annoying and put two/three stalkers behind the mineral line but they really don't do that much damage at all.
PvP however, these drop tactics are amazing. Just as with Terran, it is easy to catch the other Protoss inbetween warpgate cooldowns and do some serious damage to his economy. You combine this with the fact that Protoss's ability to recreate Probes faster actually increase their mineral expenditure in the process, so they only reap the benefits a few minutes later as opposed to a mule or larva mechanic that can burst your economy quickly. It puts you in a position where if the other side chooses to rebuild their economy the you are free to take expansions or invest in expensive tech (say drop 2/3 Stargates) and go unpunished, or rather the other Protoss has put himself in a position where he can no longer punish due to having to chrono boost probes.
I think the biggest thing to take note here is that unlike other races, you aren't dropping a part of your army, you are actually warping in your reinforcements in to do the damage, so if everything fails you end up having no army back at home waiting and end up crumbling in the process so you have to be much more intelligent with how you drop.
With the Warp-Prism, personally I've had better experience using it as more of a defensive unit to set up bases quickly. I just have one hotkeyed and lying around with a single probe in it (it has also saved my ass SOO many times in base trades, just being able to get some where remote quickly and create some tech is amazing). Whenever I create a base I just send it to where I want, deploy it and start warping in cannons whilst I also build the Nexus and Pylons.
Also, instead of Zealots, you can use the Warp-prism to cannon mineral lines from the low/high ground, only works on a few maps but it works pretty well.
|
A major problem is having enough money to actually do this and still win fights / survive their attack.
It is true that this could be used more to great effect later game. Though it's often annoying to stop collossi production at all, it could still be worth it to chrono out a warp prism. Or maybe you just have 2 robos.
|
For epic lulz, especially when a zerg has macro hatches with lots of larvae built up late-game. Warp in DTs and start one-shotting all their larvae.
|
I think the biggest thing to take note here is that unlike other races, you aren't dropping a part of your army, you are actually warping in your reinforcements in to do the damage, so if everything fails you end up having no army back at home waiting and end up crumbling in the process so you have to be much more intelligent with how you drop.
I understand this position, but I don't understand the logic behind it.
As any other race that drops (Terran's the most obvious), they actually have to remove parts of their army to do this drop. Which means their main force will be weaker, but they'll get reinforcements. With protoss doing this, you don't affect your army size, but affect a single round of reinforcements (which can be sped up a lot with chrono, zealots come in quick). If you lose the main battle, you'd be surviving on the reinforcements usually, but both other races are usually better at reinforcing (especially after coming out on top in a battle and advancing). Zerg remaxes really fast, and Terran's units heal up ready for another stim. You won't be getting many collosus out before he gets another 5-10 marauders, so usually you're dead at that point anyway.
|
Thank you so much for writing this post so well. Warp prisms need more exploring. I use them quite a bit in PvT, but they honestly never cross my mind in the other matchups...
If you want to get even more all-in you could do your blink stalker attacks at the front to draw out the main army and drop a couple immortals with a couple sentries at the ramp along with your support units to you do some real damage. It would actually be even less all-inish (than the immortals) to make that a colossus inside and warp in a supporting cast. Your colossus drop could segue into a tech switch away from colossus (maybe back into immortal or something).
Perfect post for a struggling masters protoss in PvZ. Going to experiment with this a bit
I'll mention also that I dont know if this is as all-in as you make it sound... it definitely doesn't have to be... it follows the same principle as whiteras fast warp prism drop that I still use against terran close air. If you've ever done that specific opener then you know how skimpy it feels to send your whole army to their main leaving 2 sentries behind. In actuality you're perfectly safe. I think unless they handle it completely perfectly you will have bought time to get your defenses up... Also, if you're using blink stalkers PvZ or something I dont see why you cant just retreat a bit with blink then splitting your stalkers off to go after an expansion while they move back to their main.
|
i actualy enjoy getting 2 warp prisms PvZ and get one under their main, second at some far expo and just go with main army/clear xel nagas and then drop their expo (zerg nubs move all force over there...) and at the same time bam at main chargelots with 3/2 dont care about spine crawlers rly and u just kill tech/hive/hatcherys/whatever. But u need to be good at drawing his army without engaging rly
nice writeup anyways
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 02:58 travis wrote:
A major problem is having enough money to actually do this and still win fights / survive their attack.
It is true that this could be used more to great effect later game. Though it's often annoying to stop collossi production at all, it could still be worth it to chrono out a warp prism. Or maybe you just have 2 robos.
If you have enough money to make reinforcements, then you have enough money to do this. Colossi are on their way out, strategically they force you into a 'one big hit' type scenario which tz are getting better at stopping. This strategy really isn't compatible with a hardcore colossus focus as the latter means you need to win the major fight decisively and can't afford to be losing colossus.
On June 07 2011 02:32 Selkie wrote:
Plexa, how do you deal with terran going "Oh shit" , followed by a doomdrop into a base race? This is my "normal" reaction to it (less of a doom drop and more like 3-5 medics full), following into a game of cat and mouse?
I'll see if I have the replay of the game to provide details... You're using your army to keep tabs on his army. The idea is to only use the warp prism once your army is doing something - ideally attacking, threatening to attack is sufficient. If he goes for the doom drop.. you lol in his face pretty much
On June 07 2011 02:33 ComaDose wrote:
How do you feel about carrying in two Templar with ready storms and warping in the round of zealots after? I don't really like it, but it has its place. I'd prefer the templar to be in my core army so I can (hopefully) crush his army while doing this. If im storming his workers then he might win the battle conclusively and im fucked, even though I have more workers.
Do you stick around for a second warp in round or save your prism? Depends on the situation, as you noted.
On June 07 2011 03:13 Acidictadpole wrote:Show nested quote +I think the biggest thing to take note here is that unlike other races, you aren't dropping a part of your army, you are actually warping in your reinforcements in to do the damage, so if everything fails you end up having no army back at home waiting and end up crumbling in the process so you have to be much more intelligent with how you drop. I understand this position, but I don't understand the logic behind it. As any other race that drops (Terran's the most obvious), they actually have to remove parts of their army to do this drop. Which means their main force will be weaker, but they'll get reinforcements. With protoss doing this, you don't affect your army size, but affect a single round of reinforcements (which can be sped up a lot with chrono, zealots come in quick). If you lose the main battle, you'd be surviving on the reinforcements usually, but both other races are usually better at reinforcing (especially after coming out on top in a battle and advancing). Zerg remaxes really fast, and Terran's units heal up ready for another stim. You won't be getting many collosus out before he gets another 5-10 marauders, so usually you're dead at that point anyway. This does rely on coming out approximately even with the Terran (or ahead) after the battle. He's not going to be getting any reinforcements as your warp ins will be attacking them. Like I said in response to travis' post, Colossus based strategies are becoming obsolete because of their inflexibility. Ideally after your first 3 colossus you're preparing to switch out to templar tech and the like and something like this might give you some additional seconds to get storm. But yeah, lose the battle badly and try this and you probably will die (but you're probably dead regardless).
On June 07 2011 03:18 Jayrod wrote:
Thank you so much for writing this post so well. Warp prisms need more exploring. I use them quite a bit in PvT, but they honestly never cross my mind in the other matchups...
If you want to get even more all-in you could do your blink stalker attacks at the front to draw out the main army and drop a couple immortals with a couple sentries at the ramp along with your support units to you do some real damage. It would actually be even less all-inish (than the immortals) to make that a colossus inside and warp in a supporting cast. Your colossus drop could segue into a tech switch away from colossus (maybe back into immortal or something). My first idea was to do a blinkstalker/3 prism timing push against Zerg. I would set up the prisms on the edge of the base, blink in and warp in as many zealots as I could. Didn't work as well as I thought it would
Perfect post for a struggling masters protoss in PvZ. Going to experiment with this a bit PM me
I'll mention also that I dont know if this is as all-in as you make it sound... it definitely doesn't have to be... it follows the same principle as whiteras fast warp prism drop that I still use against terran close air. If you've ever done that specific opener then you know how skimpy it feels to send your whole army to their main leaving 2 sentries behind. In actuality you're perfectly safe. I think unless they handle it completely perfectly you will have bought time to get your defenses up... Also, if you're using blink stalkers PvZ or something I dont see why you cant just retreat a bit with blink then splitting your stalkers off to go after an expansion while they move back to their main. Its as all in as a 4gate all in is. It's the same principle behind it, just at a later stage in the game
|
On June 07 2011 03:13 Acidictadpole wrote:Show nested quote +I think the biggest thing to take note here is that unlike other races, you aren't dropping a part of your army, you are actually warping in your reinforcements in to do the damage, so if everything fails you end up having no army back at home waiting and end up crumbling in the process so you have to be much more intelligent with how you drop. I understand this position, but I don't understand the logic behind it. As any other race that drops (Terran's the most obvious), they actually have to remove parts of their army to do this drop. Which means their main force will be weaker, but they'll get reinforcements. With protoss doing this, you don't affect your army size, but affect a single round of reinforcements (which can be sped up a lot with chrono, zealots come in quick). If you lose the main battle, you'd be surviving on the reinforcements usually, but both other races are usually better at reinforcing (especially after coming out on top in a battle and advancing). Zerg remaxes really fast, and Terran's units heal up ready for another stim. You won't be getting many collosus out before he gets another 5-10 marauders, so usually you're dead at that point anyway.
Terrans rarely rely on their reinforcements to win a fight half way across the map, their army is the most capable of clearing house without needing a back up round of units in the lategame. When you split your main army you force the Protoss to split his, in turn making it much weaker, if he chooses not to then he takes damage in a few ways, you might lose the main fight but the damage that is possible to be done by stimmed marines/marauders eclipses DT's/Zealots/Stalkers.
So with Protoss if you engage a Terran then warp-in your reinforcements into HIS base then you are effectively helping him IMO, he does't rely on those reinforcements if hes engaging at your base on Tal'Darim but if you are warping into his main then the units that get to his army at the end of the battle actually are used to clear the drop, so hes fighting your army on two fronts, one with a group of units he would have never used if you just used the warpins to reinforce the main fight so that why I feel thats if you warp-in to/near his main then you are maximizing the potential of his army. It is a much bigger issue for Protoss because you have the option of getting your units into the fight insanely quickly where as the Terran has to walk.
|
wow amazing research into different drop lactions not just an untested overview
|
one warp prism and gravitic drive is 300/200 so getting one is not as expensive as you would think. This will definitely improve my late-game engagements and I will definitely try this out next time I try more gateway focused strategies. Thanks plexa .
Also, Zealots in mineral lines are so much fun. I did that a lot when I was a beginner and 4 zealots can easily be as effective as a zergling runby.
|
This is maybe the most usefull thread on the strategy forums in weeks
I disagree with the thing you say about high templars, you cant warp them in with energy, but you could still load some up in to the warp prism and storm his workers, and then warp in a round zealots and kill his building.
|
ooops didn't see the guy who said it before
|
On June 07 2011 02:33 BronzeKnee wrote:
Shock and Awe was not developed (with exception of the name itself) in 1996, it was first likely recorded in the Art of War (which was supposedly written by Sun Tzu) and was used on the battlefield before that. Drawing your opponent to position A (and possibly engaging them), then attacking position B (which is lightly or undefended) is not a new doctrine.
That said, dropping in general for Protoss can be quite underwhelming when compared to Zerg or Terran drops.
For Zerg, since they already have lots of Overlords, they can basically carry their whole army anywhere they want with two upgrades. They also have Nydus networks and the creep mechanic (in addition to having units with a high base movement speed) allows for them to traverse the map quite quickly.
For Terran, if they plan to build a Barracks army (often the case against Protoss), they need medivacs to heal their units and to use stim effectively, so dropping simply becomes a bonus then. Furthermore, because their Barracks units have very high DPS, they can be dropped in small numbers effectively, because they can stim and easily pick off probes or buildings.
For the Protoss, the Warp Prism is not a unit they already get, or a required unit. It takes away time from the important Robo Facility and means this strategy is unlikely to work with Colossus in general (since you'll have less warpgates if your going Colossus and you'll also be cutting into Colossus Production to fit a Warp Prism out).
So you're stuck with the Gateway units when it comes to drops, which aren't bad, quite the opposite, but when dropped in numbers the damage they do is very limited compared to Terran, and less than even Zerg drops. Stalkers and Sentries aren't high damage dealers in general, so you wouldn't want to warp them in. But Zealots are melee, and while there DPS is decent, it does suffer vs buildings with armor since they have two attack. Also 4 stimmed Marauders does the job at killing buildings much better, just like 8 stimmed Marines does the job of killing workers better. Dark Templars are expensive, and are the best option but since they are cloaked they can often reach their target unopposed to begin with. Generally the detection surrounds the target itself. Also since Amulet was removed, it makes no sense to warp in High Templars.
Finally, since Zerg spreads creep and Overlords around the map, and since Terran has sensor towers (which are incredibly underused) it is difficult to sneak a drop in and then get the Warp Prism out without losing it.
Thus, for Protoss drops are the not only the most difficult, but also the least effective. This doesn't mean they should not be included in our play, but I would argue not at the expense of Colossus, and our entire strategy should not be based around them. Rather they should be used as reactionary measure (ie my opponent doesn't have a sensor tower and is pushing with tanks slowly, let me drop some Zealots in his base).
So while Protoss can put units anywhere, the fact these units deal low DPS in general make them a poor choice for harrassment, and as mentioned Dark Templars can often reach their target unopposed since the detection generally surrounds the target itself. So Warp Prism play, while it can be effective, is a strategy that has limited uses for Protoss. I'd rate Warp Prisms more valuable than Carriers, and perhaps equal to Motherships.
I think the biggest shittyness about Protoss drops is just the lack of range + raw dps of other units.
|
there are a lots of stuff that can negate this style of play in real game.
In order to set this up, you have to have map control in order to pick the armies engagement point. Also you have to control the wrap in timing/cool down as well as the possibility of a base trade if you lose the main battle.
This is basicly how you engage the enemy army and recall your reinforcement back in BW and it has a lots of risk into it.
This style suit best with HT plays bc they can stop counter attack/base trade with the highest production speed, However using wrap in the enemy main make you waste production cycle.
I feel like this build has some potential for a late game carrier switch delay tatic more than a killing blow. Also did you know DT 1 shot larva? you could kill off all the hatch larva saved up using DT instead of killing the tech building... kinda silly but it negate at least 1/3 of their army coming out compare to a max army in wrong composition.
|
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers.
You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed.
|
On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed.
yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army.
just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army.
|
i could see this hurting zerg alot, since in most cases protoss wins the ground battle which overtime can be overrun by zergs next wave, which this strat would force the zerg to split up his oh so important reinforcements allowing a toss to simply deny some expansion. against terran this could be just as crucial if you get massive warpins to terrans production areas.
but. theres always a downside to this, for instance unless your putting an additional robo down your going to lose some collosi/immortal/obs time. also zergs could just counter this with scourge, oh wait.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 04:42 rycho wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed. yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army. just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army. I personally feel that warping into their main is significantly easier to execute than warping in to support your army. Each to his own though. Typically speaking though, in a midgame pvz where you have 1000 minerals and no gas - 10 zealots aren't going to beef up your army at all. Wouldn't you agree that in that case it's better to mineral dump into their main that your army? I feel this has a time and place to be executed, it's not a cure all magic fix for any matchup - merely an option to amp up the pain in the mid game if circumstances permit.
|
On June 07 2011 04:45 WniO wrote:
i could see this hurting zerg alot, since in most cases protoss wins the ground battle which overtime can be overrun by zergs next wave, which this strat would force the zerg to split up his oh so important reinforcements allowing a toss to simply deny some expansion. against terran this could be just as crucial if you get massive warpins to terrans production areas.
but. theres always a downside to this, for instance unless your putting an additional robo down your going to lose some collosi/immortal/obs time. also zergs could just counter this with scourge, oh wait.
it does force zerg to split their army, but if they play correctly this benefits them, not protoss. zerg is happy to be fighting 2-3 small engagements because:
- blink and force fields (the only real way to really make basic gateway units cost effective this far into a game) require much much more attention than roaches, lings, and hydras do
- guardian shield and force field become much more effective in larger numbers and when supported by the protoss aoe units
- zerg units are faster. this means that if they have less units in one area, they simply run away, crush the other attack (because presumably they would have more there) and you gain nothing
all this kind of strategy does is gamble that your opponent will be slow to scout and respond correctly to a drop and that they'll split their units sub-optimally. i have no doubts that it can be somewhat effective in the short term, especially given that most players playing against protoss aren't used to having to split their units much, but the fact is that if both players play optimally, this kind of thing puts you behind. warp prisms have their place, but it is to help with dt harassment and reinforcing the main army, not to try to drop 20 supply of units like a terran or zerg player.
|
On June 07 2011 00:01 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2011 23:57 Kuro Shinigami wrote:
If the two main armies annihilate each other, and you still have the resources to warp in at the back of their bases i think this is making the assumption that you are already ahead in the game thus you could win anyway by simply fighting the main battle. Perhaps I assumed too much, but let me justify that statement a bit more. I find that in a lot of my pvz's that the Zerg will try to kill all my shit with banelings and at the end of the exchange we end up with no army each. The zerg then tries to remax on lings/roaches to exploit the lack of gas units and hence take the game. My reinforcements will be at home, not doing anything, and I'll be sitting there trying to churn out more colossus/VR/templar/archons - or whatever my gas heavy unit of choice is. This is designed to stop such occurrences by being active with those first round of 'expendable' units. Let us remind ourselves though, that the units we are warping in with the prism would not normally be in the army. They would be warped in to the closest based and used for reinforcements. Your opponent would be building reinforcements too, so you end up even again. What this does is places that first round of reinforcements in his main (or in your army) so that they are actually serving a purpose rather than walking across the map. Again, I stress how difficult it is to get the timing right on the warp prism so that you are attacking while warping in your first round of 'reinforcements' into his main.
So, if I am reading this right, is it also safe to assume that this is also a time delayer? For example, lets say you have your typical protoss deathball, and the zerg baneling drop roach army. Both armies have been completely wiped out, and it is obvious the zerg will remax much faster. In this case, while the zerg is focusing on the fight, he cannot remax, because the tech trees are killed. If so, what about adding an immortal variation into this mix (Drop immortal + warp zealot)? I know it's a huge investment as the 1 immortal can be a huge difference, but could it possibly be worth it for killing numerous tech buildings?
|
Hey there! I love your post, especially since I'm still new to protoss and these more interesting strategies make the learning process fun =).
I was wondering however, would it be a good idea to in the early - mid game have used that warp prism to drop a probe in a hidden part of his base (think Shattered Temple in that corner) and then have the warp prism drop at his third with the exact same strategy as you descirbed, but with the second round of units attacking at his main. The opponent will be forced to choose between defending his third and his main from attack.
This might run into trouble vs zergs that spread their overlord correctly though.
|
On June 07 2011 04:49 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:42 rycho wrote:On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed. yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army. just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army. I personally feel that warping into their main is significantly easier to execute than warping in to support your army. Each to his own though. Typically speaking though, in a midgame pvz where you have 1000 minerals and no gas - 10 zealots aren't going to beef up your army at all. Wouldn't you agree that in that case it's better to mineral dump into their main that your army? I feel this has a time and place to be executed, it's not a cure all magic fix for any matchup - merely an option to amp up the pain in the mid game if circumstances permit.
yes, in this case i suppose assuming you're completely set on cannons, warp gates, and expansions and you either have a warp prism or can spare the robo time then i think zealots at different expansions can be pretty good. i find it to be very difficult to do this kind of thing unscouted though, unless you have some phoenixes or a void ray to clear out some of the overlords beforehand.
perhaps i misunderstood the OP though, i thought it was being presented as sort of a midgame 2-3 base all-in where you get 10 gates and a warp prism and then try to trick them into a poor position and win the game (or do a bunch of damage) with your zealot warpin. theres a big difference to me between playing with this all-in goal in mind and doing some zealot warpin harassment when you get some extra money.
that said, personally when i do things like this i try to fake an attack and then force field off their army so they can't attack me so that i won't lose the main engagement that i otherwise would have without the warpins; i find this to be pretty effective. often their attention turns to their main or their expansion that you're attacking and you can move forward again and trap some units with some quick force fields and get some free kills.
|
On June 07 2011 02:33 ComaDose wrote:
Hi Plexa ;p
I miss the shuttle but he couldn't carry a whole round of units anyways. At least he could take a beating.
The Shuttle and the Warp Prism have the same amount of overall hit points, just distributed differently.
Warp Prism: H:100 S:40 cost: 200 min
Shuttle: H:80 S:60 cost:200 min
The whole argument of the Shuttle being sturdier than the Warp prism doesn't really hold a whole lot of water. If old school BW players could harass with a Shuttle and a Reaver while Scourge were flying around, then I think we SC2 players can find a way to warp in 10+ zealots into an enemy base. I'm not saying it's easy, but harassment style play isn't supposed to be. Besides, I'd rather figure this out than constantly trading armies with zergs.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 05:01 rycho wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:49 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:42 rycho wrote:On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed. yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army. just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army. I personally feel that warping into their main is significantly easier to execute than warping in to support your army. Each to his own though. Typically speaking though, in a midgame pvz where you have 1000 minerals and no gas - 10 zealots aren't going to beef up your army at all. Wouldn't you agree that in that case it's better to mineral dump into their main that your army? I feel this has a time and place to be executed, it's not a cure all magic fix for any matchup - merely an option to amp up the pain in the mid game if circumstances permit. yes, in this case i suppose assuming you're completely set on cannons, warp gates, and expansions and you either have a warp prism or can spare the robo time then i think zealots at different expansions can be pretty good. i find it to be very difficult to do this kind of thing unscouted though, unless you have some phoenixes or a void ray to clear out some of the overlords beforehand. perhaps i misunderstood the OP though, i thought it was being presented as sort of a midgame 2-3 base all-in where you get 10 gates and a warp prism and then try to trick them into a poor position and win the game (or do a bunch of damage) with your zealot warpin. theres a big difference to me between playing with this all-in goal in mind and doing some zealot warpin harassment when you get some extra money. that said, personally when i do things like this i try to fake an attack and then force field off their army so they can't attack me so that i won't lose the main engagement that i otherwise would have without the warpins; i find this to be pretty effective. often their attention turns to their main or their expansion that you're attacking and you can move forward again and trap some units with some quick force fields and get some free kills.
I dont mind if the warp prism gets scouted though, generally zergs overreact to it and they have to give up position. Which typically I can use to my benefit. The OP is expressing a technique which is meant to augment any standard midgame play - either warping units into your army or into his main. Faking an attack is perfectly fine, as you point out the zerg gives up position and you can exploit that.
By virtue of attacking with everything, I think this has to be classed as some kind of all in strategy. It simply has to do some damage or stall or something - else you'll die. You just don't get to waste a round of units on nothing and get away with it, if you know what I mean. In your case you're sac'ing a round of units to gain position and maybe some drone kills - which is fine but you still need to do damage (which you do by trapping units with ff). It's a valid technique, it's just hard to get right.
On June 07 2011 05:06 awwnuts07 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 02:33 ComaDose wrote:
Hi Plexa ;p
I miss the shuttle but he couldn't carry a whole round of units anyways. At least he could take a beating.
The Shuttle and the Warp Prism have the same amount of overall hit points, just distributed differently. Warp Prism: H:100 S:40 cost: 200 min Shuttle: H:80 S:60 cost:200 min The whole argument of the Shuttle being sturdier than the Warp prism doesn't really hold a whole lot of water. If old school BW players could harass with a Shuttle and a Reaver while Scourge were flying around, then I think we SC2 players can find a way to warp in 10+ zealots into an enemy base. I'm not saying it's easy, but harassment style play isn't supposed to be. Besides, I'd rather figure this out than constantly trading armies with zergs.
Warp prism is weaker than the shuttle because the strength of AA units is significantly higher. So while their HP is the same, prisms die way faster and hence *feel* weaker.
On June 07 2011 04:59 Axel.Bowex wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 00:01 Plexa wrote:On June 06 2011 23:57 Kuro Shinigami wrote:
If the two main armies annihilate each other, and you still have the resources to warp in at the back of their bases i think this is making the assumption that you are already ahead in the game thus you could win anyway by simply fighting the main battle. Perhaps I assumed too much, but let me justify that statement a bit more. I find that in a lot of my pvz's that the Zerg will try to kill all my shit with banelings and at the end of the exchange we end up with no army each. The zerg then tries to remax on lings/roaches to exploit the lack of gas units and hence take the game. My reinforcements will be at home, not doing anything, and I'll be sitting there trying to churn out more colossus/VR/templar/archons - or whatever my gas heavy unit of choice is. This is designed to stop such occurrences by being active with those first round of 'expendable' units. Let us remind ourselves though, that the units we are warping in with the prism would not normally be in the army. They would be warped in to the closest based and used for reinforcements. Your opponent would be building reinforcements too, so you end up even again. What this does is places that first round of reinforcements in his main (or in your army) so that they are actually serving a purpose rather than walking across the map. Again, I stress how difficult it is to get the timing right on the warp prism so that you are attacking while warping in your first round of 'reinforcements' into his main. So, if I am reading this right, is it also safe to assume that this is also a time delayer? For example, lets say you have your typical protoss deathball, and the zerg baneling drop roach army. Both armies have been completely wiped out, and it is obvious the zerg will remax much faster. In this case, while the zerg is focusing on the fight, he cannot remax, because the tech trees are killed. If so, what about adding an immortal variation into this mix (Drop immortal + warp zealot)? I know it's a huge investment as the 1 immortal can be a huge difference, but could it possibly be worth it for killing numerous tech buildings? Pretty much. If you're playing this off of a deathball which just got smashed - you are well behind. If the Zerg trades armies with a death ball then that is a massive win for him. You're basically playing stall until you can get more gas units, you're in a crap situation but it might just give you some valuable seconds... I don't deathball any more pvz so I'm not sure if this is actually the case, but it makes sense that it would be.
I wouldn't have immortals if I have a deathball, so that scenario wouldn't happen.
On June 07 2011 05:00 Nurkas wrote:
Hey there! I love your post, especially since I'm still new to protoss and these more interesting strategies make the learning process fun =).
I was wondering however, would it be a good idea to in the early - mid game have used that warp prism to drop a probe in a hidden part of his base (think Shattered Temple in that corner) and then have the warp prism drop at his third with the exact same strategy as you descirbed, but with the second round of units attacking at his main. The opponent will be forced to choose between defending his third and his main from attack.
This might run into trouble vs zergs that spread their overlord correctly though.
Nope that is a terrible strategy and wouldn't work against any competent player. I've done stuff with two prisms though, and that can be fun but pretty gimmicky. Anything involving a warp prism before the 13 minute mark is probably not going to work - unless you are white-ra 
|
Wouldn't a Colo drop backed up by 6 - 10 Zealots (depending on gates) be more effective? Colo to take the mineral lines and Zealots to take out tech structures?
I'm not a good player (and it's been a while since I played BW) but regarding Protoss being dropped on by Terran (and now Zerg) shouldn't we be making more observers (as I seem to recall being done in BW) and spreading them around the map? A least along usual drop routes? I'm not sure I get why Protoss often just make 1 observer (or 2 at the most) when 4 - 5 may be better. They dont take that long to build especially with Chrono and can certainly be churned out while the Support Bay and Lance upgrade are going on (although the gas cost is a factor). Maybe in the future we'll see two Robo Bays as standard for Protoss.
|
I haven't read the entire thread (only the OP), but beside the fact that this is a very potent tactic, I'd like to make 3 comments:
1. In terms of effectivness, vZ > vP > vT. Against Z, there's literally 0 risk and almost never a bad idea. Mid-late game zealots are useless in your main army and you're always limited on gas, and have plenty of extra minerals. And warping in anywhere is good. Zerg always has lots of undefended expansions for you to hit, and the main can be potentially a great target as well.
Against P, 1 of 2 things can happen - your opponent doesn't have warpgates ready and cannot warp in anything to defend, so he takes a lot of damage. His main army may gain a slight edge over yours, but the economic damage he takes will make it far more worth it for you. The other thing that can happen is that he does have warpgates ready, in which case he needs to warp in an equal or greater number of units to defend, so that when your main armies clash you'll end up ahead in that battle. In PvP defender's advantage doesn't really exist - if anything, it's usually attacker's advantage. The only reason why I think using this vP is slightly worse than vZ is because your robo build time is absolutely critical when keeping up in colossus wars, plus PvP usually involves low-econ games where every mineral does matter.
Against T, most expansions are guarded by planetaries, plus in most cases all of a terran's production facilities are located in the main (unlike zerg) so either you'll have to warp in a lot of zealots in the main to actually kill stuff, or he'll be able to defend it just by units popping out of barracks. Also zealots are a vital part of a Protoss ball against terran, so every unit you're leaving out of your main ball is weakening your main army. This isn't to say you shouldn't try this against T, because it certainly can deal a lot of damage in many circumstances.
2. You don't necessarily even need a warp prism! Throwing up proxy pylons in random places on the map, or putting a pylon right under someone's main and using an obs to warp in on top can be a much less micro intensive substitute than a warp prism. Especially in late game, proxy pylons are cheap, give you map control/vision, and don't take up robo build time.
3. In terms of what units to warp in, I agree that zealots and dts are best. But actually stalkers can be great in some circumstances: 2 that I can think of right away is harassing terran expos with planetaries - just put stalkers behind the minerals out of range of the planetary, but still in range to attack SCVs. This is so annoying for terran to deal with, especially if you have a few armor upgrades and then SCVs can't even kill those stalkers even if you don't micro them at all. The second is map dependent - some maps have cliffs behind the mineral line (think 3rd base on typhon, xel naga), which is perfect for placing a few stalkers on.
|
On June 07 2011 05:31 Anihc wrote:
I haven't read the entire thread (only the OP), but beside the fact that this is a very potent tactic, I'd like to make 3 comments:
1. In terms of effectivness, vZ > vP > vT. Against Z, there's literally 0 risk and almost never a bad idea. Mid-late game zealots are useless in your main army and you're always limited on gas, and have plenty of extra minerals. And warping in anywhere is good. Zerg always has lots of undefended expansions for you to hit, and the main can be potentially a great target as well.
Against P, 1 of 2 things can happen - your opponent doesn't have warpgates ready and cannot warp in anything to defend, so he takes a lot of damage. His main army may gain a slight edge over yours, but the economic damage he takes will make it far more worth it for you. The other thing that can happen is that he does have warpgates ready, in which case he needs to warp in an equal or greater number of units to defend, so that when your main armies clash you'll end up ahead in that battle. In PvP defender's advantage doesn't really exist - if anything, it's usually attacker's advantage. The only reason why I think using this vP is slightly worse than vZ is because your robo build time is absolutely critical when keeping up in colossus wars, plus PvP usually involves low-econ games where every mineral does matter.
Against T, most expansions are guarded by planetaries, plus in most cases all of a terran's production facilities are located in the main (unlike zerg) so either you'll have to warp in a lot of zealots in the main to actually kill stuff, or he'll be able to defend it just by units popping out of barracks. Also zealots are a vital part of a Protoss ball against terran, so every unit you're leaving out of your main ball is weakening your main army. This isn't to say you shouldn't try this against T, because it certainly can deal a lot of damage in many circumstances.
2. You don't necessarily even need a warp prism! Throwing up proxy pylons in random places on the map, or putting a pylon right under someone's main and using an obs to warp in on top can be a much less micro intensive substitute than a warp prism. Especially in late game, proxy pylons are cheap, give you map control/vision, and don't take up robo build time.
3. In terms of what units to warp in, I agree that zealots and dts are best. But actually stalkers can be great in some circumstances: 2 that I can think of right away is harassing terran expos with planetaries - just put stalkers behind the minerals out of range of the planetary, but still in range to attack SCVs. This is so annoying for terran to deal with, especially if you have a few armor upgrades and then SCVs can't even kill those stalkers even if you don't micro them at all. The second is map dependent - some maps have cliffs behind the mineral line (think 3rd base on typhon, xel naga), which is perfect for placing a few stalkers on.
Good post. Thank you. I like what you said what Z>P>T effectiveness.. I agree completely. Though I do think warp prism is a lot more mobile and threatening than proxy pylon.
|
As much as I love this when I play Protoss, what are some of the better response as zerg?
|
On June 07 2011 04:49 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:42 rycho wrote:On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed. yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army. just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army. I personally feel that warping into their main is significantly easier to execute than warping in to support your army. Each to his own though. Typically speaking though, in a midgame pvz where you have 1000 minerals and no gas - 10 zealots aren't going to beef up your army at all. Wouldn't you agree that in that case it's better to mineral dump into their main that your army? I feel this has a time and place to be executed, it's not a cure all magic fix for any matchup - merely an option to amp up the pain in the mid game if circumstances permit.
What you say here is exactly where I think the primary usefulness in this lies. Mineral dumping.
|
mixed emotions on this, ill explain why.
Anyone who denies that this is good is a total moron and should not be playing an RTS. Of course its a good idea.
However i think it doesnt work for protoss. Terran and zerg have amazing mobility and speed. Terran can drop your base, stim into a medivac and get away easily. Speedlings and ive even seen it with speed roaches, can run into expos, pick of nexus/cc/hatch or whatever and then run again.
Toss dont have many choices to do that. Stalkers are the fastest unit, but get destroyed by hydras roaches and lings if you can get a surround. And dont get me started on marauders.
I understand your logic. What good is warping in at the point of engagment? Either you are going to get rolled over, so any extra units will be wasted, or youre already going to kill him, again making the new units not as effective as they could be.
The fine line is knowing how the battle is going to end up. Being able to see both armies and make a snap call saying 'yes im going to win that' or 'shit i need to leg it' is pretty hard to do and getting it wrong could lose you the game if youre planning on warping in units in their base instead.
So many times ive been playing a zerg, killed his army and advanced into his 'base' (i mean some kind of centre point of his hatches and not his main base) just to get completely surrounded from all sides and lose.
another point is can you really afford to stop collosus or immortal production? you could say that one chronoboosted warp prism might only take 35 ingame seconds to build (no idea how long it takes) but chances are you could lose it or you might even want 2 to hit both his 3rd and main at the same time or alternating. And i wouldnt want to throw another robo just for prism production.
personally i would only do this in 2 occasions:
1. if i was so far ahead i knew i was likely to win. I have a massive unit/tech/upgrade advantage that i could 1-a and kill most his shit. So one warp in a terrans main to take out 4 rax and a factory, or taking out a zergs expo just to cut back production, just to put a nail in the coffin.
2. If i feel like im screwed. If my bases are mining out. If terran has a huge ball of units, or if zerg have alot of infestors/blings/broods (units that i have trouble countering, banes especially -_-) Mainly if i feel like im not gonna get back into the game with straight up play i might try one drop in the right place to finish him
im gonna try this out and see how it goes, hopefully it'll have some success. nicely constructed post btw, loks like alot of effort put into it :D
|
On June 07 2011 05:37 QTIP. wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 05:31 Anihc wrote:
I haven't read the entire thread (only the OP), but beside the fact that this is a very potent tactic, I'd like to make 3 comments:
1. In terms of effectivness, vZ > vP > vT. Against Z, there's literally 0 risk and almost never a bad idea. Mid-late game zealots are useless in your main army and you're always limited on gas, and have plenty of extra minerals. And warping in anywhere is good. Zerg always has lots of undefended expansions for you to hit, and the main can be potentially a great target as well.
Against P, 1 of 2 things can happen - your opponent doesn't have warpgates ready and cannot warp in anything to defend, so he takes a lot of damage. His main army may gain a slight edge over yours, but the economic damage he takes will make it far more worth it for you. The other thing that can happen is that he does have warpgates ready, in which case he needs to warp in an equal or greater number of units to defend, so that when your main armies clash you'll end up ahead in that battle. In PvP defender's advantage doesn't really exist - if anything, it's usually attacker's advantage. The only reason why I think using this vP is slightly worse than vZ is because your robo build time is absolutely critical when keeping up in colossus wars, plus PvP usually involves low-econ games where every mineral does matter.
Against T, most expansions are guarded by planetaries, plus in most cases all of a terran's production facilities are located in the main (unlike zerg) so either you'll have to warp in a lot of zealots in the main to actually kill stuff, or he'll be able to defend it just by units popping out of barracks. Also zealots are a vital part of a Protoss ball against terran, so every unit you're leaving out of your main ball is weakening your main army. This isn't to say you shouldn't try this against T, because it certainly can deal a lot of damage in many circumstances.
2. You don't necessarily even need a warp prism! Throwing up proxy pylons in random places on the map, or putting a pylon right under someone's main and using an obs to warp in on top can be a much less micro intensive substitute than a warp prism. Especially in late game, proxy pylons are cheap, give you map control/vision, and don't take up robo build time.
3. In terms of what units to warp in, I agree that zealots and dts are best. But actually stalkers can be great in some circumstances: 2 that I can think of right away is harassing terran expos with planetaries - just put stalkers behind the minerals out of range of the planetary, but still in range to attack SCVs. This is so annoying for terran to deal with, especially if you have a few armor upgrades and then SCVs can't even kill those stalkers even if you don't micro them at all. The second is map dependent - some maps have cliffs behind the mineral line (think 3rd base on typhon, xel naga), which is perfect for placing a few stalkers on.
Good post. Thank you. I like what you said what Z>P>T effectiveness.. I agree completely. Though I do think warp prism is a lot more mobile and threatening than proxy pylon.
Yes warp prism is a lot better but like Plexa said in the OP, the main downside to this tactic is that it takes a lot of multitasking/APM to use. Proxy pylons take slightly less multitasking/APM.
|
On June 07 2011 05:16 aZealot wrote:
Wouldn't a Colo drop backed up by 6 - 10 Zealots (depending on gates) be more effective? Colo to take the mineral lines and Zealots to take out tech structures?.
Colossus dropping, while it would be AWESOME seems to inject more risk into this strategy than is hoped for. In many cases, that one Colossus can and will make the difference in the much more important larger battle that is taking place out in the field. One Colossus is not superb alone - relatively weak, easily swarmed, etc. And even with a handful of zealots, it cannot be easily protected. Furthermore, the strategy in part depends on you, as the one doing the drop, your willingness to lose those (valiant) shock troopers. Colossus are to valuable to "throw away" like this and to vulnerable in the Prism to hope to safely retreat it that way (a handful of mutas, Blink Stalkers, or Vikings tear the Prism to pieces, though Speed would help).
...Immortals on the other hand.... >_>
PLEXA - I was curious to note that when considering when and where to Warp your shock zealots, you did not (I believe) mention the possibility of a multi-warp/drop. In your primary example, you noted target priority: Main, Natural, Army, Defensively, eventually settling on the Main as being generally the best choice.
However I am wondering about the possibility of the "Multi-Warp". I have not had an opportunity to test this, but I am forced to wonder about maximizing damage and whether or not warping 4 Zealots in the Main and 4 Zealots in the natural is more or less effective than 8 Zealots in the main. While this does require an extra Warp Prism, with the increased use of High Templar instead of Colossus, and the Age of the Archon upon us, this could be fairly nasty to deal with.
Pros of Multi-Drop:
-More damage potential: why damage one of his bases when you can get two?
-Panic Mode: Having to deal with one drop while managing a "dancing" army can be stressful enough, why not double their stress and double up?
-Force a choice: In many cases the Opponent won't be able to effectively respond to both, forcing them to make a hard choice as to what to defend (ie commit their forces to defending), allowing you to exploit the choice they didn't make by, for example, continuing to Warp in units at the natural if they chose to defend their main.
-Higher likelihood of a "Static Defense Overreaction: If I just got Multi-dropped, I personally would be much more likely to "panic" drop cannons at my bases and all future bases, spending resources that could be better allocated.
-Others?
Cons of Multidropping:
-Higher chance of doing NO damage: A larger concentrated group of Zealots can do more "burst" damage, and so even if your opponent is particularly reactive, you still may be able to snipe an important building or two. Not so much the case with only ~4 Zealots.
-APM: Not as limiting at top tiers of play, but still present at all tiers. Managing one drop while "dancing" your army about can be tough to do. Double that for the Multi-Drop.
-Cost: Warp Prism and Proxy Pylons aren't free.
-Robo Time: Doubles the amount of time you aren't building Colossus. [However, with a more Templar (High and/or Dark) centered strategy, that Robo that you used to build one Observer is vacant.]
-Probably more?
So Plexa, have you tried this? Success? Failure? I'd love to know why Multi-drops weren't considered and whether or not you think it is a valid expansion on your well developed concept?
PS Also, what about about an Immortal drops? They are "cheaper", hardy, and can effectively deal with Roaches and a defensively position Siege Tank with a little Zealot support.
|
I didn't think someone could take the term warp prism harass and turn it into a huge post.
|
one thign to note as well is that as a terran user, once zealots have charge, one of the key things that terran small armies does to win fights against zealots is to kite them backwards, any amount of micro you take away from the main battle, is going to be a victory for the protoss player. As far as I am concerned unless you're at a very high pro level, the amount to maintain macro, and micro on 2 fronts with terran stutter micro is insanely difficult/impossible. There's lots to this that sounds good and something I've always wondered why toss don't do more since terran are already "expected" to do it.
I think a key thing to remember here is that this is largely a mineral sink because both zealots and warp prisms only cost minerals, so even losing a drop, isn't as devastating as you'd expect. it makes the player play more safe, react to the fear of drops, etc. it's the same thing terran does to the other races when it drops a lot. Just because they can see it coming doens't mean it isn't doing it's job.
|
I've been doing this lately. I set up my control groups so 7 and 8 are warp prisms, and I actually have two flying around the map most of the time. I think it's pretty invaluable against T and Z, though haven't really worked anything like it into my PvP play.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 05:47 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 05:37 QTIP. wrote:On June 07 2011 05:31 Anihc wrote:
I haven't read the entire thread (only the OP), but beside the fact that this is a very potent tactic, I'd like to make 3 comments:
1. In terms of effectivness, vZ > vP > vT. Against Z, there's literally 0 risk and almost never a bad idea. Mid-late game zealots are useless in your main army and you're always limited on gas, and have plenty of extra minerals. And warping in anywhere is good. Zerg always has lots of undefended expansions for you to hit, and the main can be potentially a great target as well.
Against P, 1 of 2 things can happen - your opponent doesn't have warpgates ready and cannot warp in anything to defend, so he takes a lot of damage. His main army may gain a slight edge over yours, but the economic damage he takes will make it far more worth it for you. The other thing that can happen is that he does have warpgates ready, in which case he needs to warp in an equal or greater number of units to defend, so that when your main armies clash you'll end up ahead in that battle. In PvP defender's advantage doesn't really exist - if anything, it's usually attacker's advantage. The only reason why I think using this vP is slightly worse than vZ is because your robo build time is absolutely critical when keeping up in colossus wars, plus PvP usually involves low-econ games where every mineral does matter.
Against T, most expansions are guarded by planetaries, plus in most cases all of a terran's production facilities are located in the main (unlike zerg) so either you'll have to warp in a lot of zealots in the main to actually kill stuff, or he'll be able to defend it just by units popping out of barracks. Also zealots are a vital part of a Protoss ball against terran, so every unit you're leaving out of your main ball is weakening your main army. This isn't to say you shouldn't try this against T, because it certainly can deal a lot of damage in many circumstances.
2. You don't necessarily even need a warp prism! Throwing up proxy pylons in random places on the map, or putting a pylon right under someone's main and using an obs to warp in on top can be a much less micro intensive substitute than a warp prism. Especially in late game, proxy pylons are cheap, give you map control/vision, and don't take up robo build time.
3. In terms of what units to warp in, I agree that zealots and dts are best. But actually stalkers can be great in some circumstances: 2 that I can think of right away is harassing terran expos with planetaries - just put stalkers behind the minerals out of range of the planetary, but still in range to attack SCVs. This is so annoying for terran to deal with, especially if you have a few armor upgrades and then SCVs can't even kill those stalkers even if you don't micro them at all. The second is map dependent - some maps have cliffs behind the mineral line (think 3rd base on typhon, xel naga), which is perfect for placing a few stalkers on.
Good post. Thank you. I like what you said what Z>P>T effectiveness.. I agree completely. Though I do think warp prism is a lot more mobile and threatening than proxy pylon. Yes warp prism is a lot better but like Plexa said in the OP, the main downside to this tactic is that it takes a lot of multitasking/APM to use. Proxy pylons take slightly less multitasking/APM.
And you can look reaaalllly stupid if it fails
On June 07 2011 05:41 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 04:49 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:42 rycho wrote:On June 07 2011 04:36 Plexa wrote:On June 07 2011 04:34 rycho wrote:
even assuming you can get the warp prism there pvz completely unscouted, i have doubts as to the effectiveness of this.
firstly, gateway units are really bad in small numbers, despite what you've posted. zealots lose to whatever zerg unit that he's reinforcing with (including lings) at even cost, and you're fighting on creep and near a queen and possible static defense. on top of this, unlike a medivac drop you aren't getting away if the battle turns against you because protoss units are very slow and prone to be surrounded.
past this, wasting 10 supply of units not in the battle with your main army probably means you're going to lose the fight. again, since protoss units tend to be slow you probably aren't getting away - if you are behind in the battle at the front, you lose everything and probably the game. this is why most protoss players tend to leave their units together when possible in this matchup.
i know warp prisms have taken over for nydus worms as the unit everyone says should be used more, but they just aren't that effective. it would be great if there was anything worth warping in, but protoss units are just ineffective compared to their zerg and terran counterparts when fighting in small numbers. You haven't read the thread. We're not talking about warping in 10 units randomly into the zerg main, were timing it with our army movements. The unit we're warping in aren't going to be a part of our main army anyway, as already discussed. yes, i have read the thread. i've seen you say this numerous times, and its categorically wrong. if you're attacking their army as your warp gates come up and then warping in their main, not near your army, then the reinforcements would be part of your army. just because you're choosing to attack them at a poor time (right as your warp gates are coming up) doesn't mean you can then choose to say you couldn't have possibly reinforced your main army. I personally feel that warping into their main is significantly easier to execute than warping in to support your army. Each to his own though. Typically speaking though, in a midgame pvz where you have 1000 minerals and no gas - 10 zealots aren't going to beef up your army at all. Wouldn't you agree that in that case it's better to mineral dump into their main that your army? I feel this has a time and place to be executed, it's not a cure all magic fix for any matchup - merely an option to amp up the pain in the mid game if circumstances permit. What you say here is exactly where I think the primary usefulness in this lies. Mineral dumping.
I think of it as trading minerals for time :3
On June 07 2011 06:02 Foirtchern wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 05:16 aZealot wrote:
Wouldn't a Colo drop backed up by 6 - 10 Zealots (depending on gates) be more effective? Colo to take the mineral lines and Zealots to take out tech structures?. PLEXA - I was curious to note that when considering when and where to Warp your shock zealots, you did not (I believe) mention the possibility of a multi-warp/drop. In your primary example, you noted target priority: Main, Natural, Army, Defensively, eventually settling on the Main as being generally the best choice. However I am wondering about the possibility of the "Multi-Warp". I have not had an opportunity to test this, but I am forced to wonder about maximizing damage and whether or not warping 4 Zealots in the Main and 4 Zealots in the natural is more or less effective than 8 Zealots in the main. While this does require an extra Warp Prism, with the increased use of High Templar instead of Colossus, and the Age of the Archon upon us, this could be fairly nasty to deal with. So Plexa, have you tried this? Success? Failure? I'd love to know why Multi-drops weren't considered and whether or not you think it is a valid expansion on your well developed concept? PS Also, what about about an Immortal drops? They are "cheaper", hardy, and can effectively deal with Roaches and a defensively position Siege Tank with a little Zealot support. I've done multiwarping before. I said earlier in the thread that its pretty fun but i dno if its really viable. It was a game against megalisk on shattered temple where i was just warping in zealots/archons alternating between his main and third. Ultimately though, I dont think it was more effective than one prism. Plus chances are you won't be able to get the same mileage out of your zealots - seeing as everything you want to kill is in his main.
On June 07 2011 06:05 Voltaire wrote:
I didn't think someone could take the term warp prism harass and turn it into a huge post.
This isn't event warp prism harass. lol.
|
Off Topic Question: Plexa is this a hint that you'll be "officially back" to TL soon? :D
On Topic: You mentioned you don't go protoss deathball anymore, however, what unit composition do you go for then? Against a Baneling drop + Roach ball, you need forcefields and collo for that damage needed for when you micro from banelings, and you need many stalkers to snipe the overlords. So, what do you then?
|
I think someone already argued this point but let me just say that i personally believe that vs Z targeting down a tech structure is the best thing to do with this tactic.
Lets say for instance you have your typical colossus/sentry/stalker army going for a push and your warp prism is going to the back to warp in.What happens is you will kill the zerg army with the death ball.The problem is the reinforcement that comes in after killing off a,lets say,hydra/roach/corrupter army.When you do that the warp-in timing of the warp prism is key here because at the same time that you engage the zerg army you should warp in zealots to target down the hydra den(the spawning pool as well if the attack goes uncontested) because they are probably going to kill all of your colossus,which leaves you with the ground stalker army(most likely with blink) and than they reinforce pure speedling/hydra after that first engagement.
You would find yourself in a even better position if the zerg would go for a heavy baneling centered tactic.While this would require a high amount of APM(warping in and telling the zealots to target down the bane nest,while dropping FF to isolate the rest of the army from the overlords that are about to bane drop you and sniping them off with the stalkers)i think its quite possible for a pro player to handle it.Imagine if you managed to snipe the nest,the zerg would be left with a speedling army with unupgraded roaches that would die to a army of blink stalkers and at least 1-2 colossus.
The tech structure that you are targeting should be the one that would pose the most threat after your first engagement and actually starting to kill it right before you engage the zerg.It seems like a guessing game but its really not,you can logically assume whats best based on his and yours army composition.
Anyways this is why i feel the priority should be tech>drones.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 07 2011 06:22 Axel.Bowex wrote:
Off Topic Question: Plexa is this a hint that you'll be "officially back" to TL soon? :D
On Topic: You mentioned you don't go protoss deathball anymore, however, what unit composition do you go for then? Against a Baneling drop + Roach ball, you need forcefields and collo for that damage needed for when you micro from banelings, and you need many stalkers to snipe the overlords. So, what do you then? Immortal/Stalker/Archon/Storm/Sentry etc. Pretty much anything that will come out of a gateway + immortals haha. Storm rapes banelings harder than colo since they love clumping
|
On June 07 2011 06:28 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 06:22 Axel.Bowex wrote:
Off Topic Question: Plexa is this a hint that you'll be "officially back" to TL soon? :D
On Topic: You mentioned you don't go protoss deathball anymore, however, what unit composition do you go for then? Against a Baneling drop + Roach ball, you need forcefields and collo for that damage needed for when you micro from banelings, and you need many stalkers to snipe the overlords. So, what do you then? Immortal/Stalker/Archon/Storm/Sentry etc. Pretty anything that will come out of a gateway + immortals haha. Storm rapes banelings harder than colo
I think you avoided the off topic question there
Anyways, do you mind uploading some replays of that, as I would love to study those, and implement that into my game.
|
This what I needed, Protoss finally innovating their same old bland strategies that we've learned to cope with!
Great article and well thought out. Sucks to be me though
|
Plexa, close this thread, please and thank you -Zergs around the world.
By the way, if you could neural parasite a warp prism as a zerg, You should be allowed to warp in zerg units! (lol jk).
|
Protoss don't need this, plain and simple. The goal behind the Protoss is to reach a maxed deathball as soon as possible. That's why harassing or anything that needs micro is completely pointless and it's much better to stay in your base and defend until you've hit that limit. Investing in this slows down your ability to reach that critical mass, and thus this will never be used at a professional level.
Believe me, I would love it if Protoss would do this. Seriously, it would be great. I'd leave a couple of roaches at each base and when they try this it's going to be a complete waste. Then I would just outmass them. It's like Protoss is doing their job for me in wasting minerals not going towards their giant a-click ball.
There's a big difference between Terran drops and Protoss drops. One, Medivacs actually have use in their army, and two, marine DPS / speed is amazing. Gateway units on the other hand, are much weaker when they aren't surrounded by sentries and tier 3 units.
|
On June 07 2011 07:18 elitesniper420 wrote:
Protoss don't need this, plain and simple. The goal behind the Protoss is to reach a maxed deathball as soon as possible. That's why harassing or anything that needs micro is completely pointless and it's much better to stay in your base and defend until you've hit that limit. Investing in this slows down your ability to reach that critical mass, and thus this will never be used at a professional level.
Believe me, I would love it if Protoss would do this. Seriously, it would be great. I'd leave a couple of roaches at each base and when they try this it's going to be a complete waste. Then I would just outmass them. It's like Protoss is doing their job for me in wasting minerals not going towards their giant a-click ball.
There's a big difference between Terran drops and Protoss drops. One, Medivacs actually have use in their army, and two, marine DPS / speed is amazing. Gateway units on the other hand, are much weaker when they aren't surrounded by sentries and tier 3 units.
And this is why zerg'd stay stagnant for so long, they were too ingrained in the old way of "LOL 300 food push guyz", but they'd still die to death balls. Zergs are finally figuring out that, "hey, if I get a smart unit composition, I can just lol roll all over them in multiple waves, rather than 1 giant 300 food push", and also learning "hey If I drop hydra's in his mineral lines, his workers die fast!"
By limiting your thought process to "maxxed death ball" you auto exclude HUNDREDS if not THOUSANDS of other scenarios in which you can win w/o going to "Max deathball".
Personally I think protoss needs to do more effective midgame harass/cost effective pushes. The main problem I see w/ zealot drops is that protoss never tries to pick the zealots back up.... (probably cause warp prism is slow, but they don't even bother trying). So instead of having some unit retention when doing harass, they're paying for a gamble of doing damage, rather than terrans which can pick up their marines back up and be like "lol, still got 8 marines, umad?" and continue dropping in different areas, so that any damage done by terran drops are always effective, because they're not left to die.
|
On June 07 2011 06:53 Probe1 wrote:This what I needed, Protoss finally innovating their same old bland strategies that we've learned to cope with! Great article and well thought out. Sucks to be me though
This is exactly what I was saying about zerg when I first saw incontrol getting crushed by the mass expand bling/ling drop/infestor styles a couple months ago. Microless roach/hydra wasn't cutting it anymore. Its cool how the pendulum swings back and forth.
|
On June 07 2011 05:45 ThatGuy89 wrote:
another point is can you really afford to stop collosus or immortal production? you could say that one chronoboosted warp prism might only take 35 ingame seconds to build (no idea how long it takes) but chances are you could lose it or you might even want 2 to hit both his 3rd and main at the same time or alternating. And i wouldnt want to throw another robo just for prism production.
I know MC (might as well reference him since essentially the #1 Toss) stopped Colossi production in his game against Idra on Testbug, even though Idra had like 40 hydras barreling towards his stalkers. I guess when you have 40+ blink stalkers with +3 weapon upgrades, you have enough muscle to keep the zerg army from killing you, however, you can't really kill the zerg either. So it's like this weird stalemate situation. He eventually added DTs to hit those expos his army couldn't get to, but imagine if he had made a warp prism? It's not like he didn't have the space minerals.
Same situation happened in a game with Ret. MC didn't make a single colossus, just Blink Stalkers accompanied with a few sentries (Ret wasn't making Hydras though). Eventually he added DTs to the mix, but he could have gotten a warp prism. He had the money and a Robo that was doing absolutely nothing.
|
On June 07 2011 07:32 awwnuts07 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 05:45 ThatGuy89 wrote:
another point is can you really afford to stop collosus or immortal production? you could say that one chronoboosted warp prism might only take 35 ingame seconds to build (no idea how long it takes) but chances are you could lose it or you might even want 2 to hit both his 3rd and main at the same time or alternating. And i wouldnt want to throw another robo just for prism production.
I know MC (might as well reference him since essentially the #1 Toss) stopped Colossi production in his game against Idra on Testbug, even though Idra had like 40 hydras barreling towards his stalkers. I guess when you have 40+ blink stalkers with +3 weapon upgrades, you have enough muscle to keep the zerg army from killing you, however, you can't really kill the zerg either. So it's like this weird stalemate situation. He eventually added DTs to hit those expos his army couldn't get to, but imagine if he had made a warp prism? It's not like he didn't have the space minerals. Same situation happened in a game with Ret. MC didn't make a single colossus, just Blink Stalkers accompanied with a few sentries (Ret wasn't making Hydras though). Eventually he added DTs to the mix, but he could have gotten a warp prism. He had the money and a Robo that was doing absolutely nothing.
That's a different scenario. Idra had so many corruptors that's it wasn't worth it for MC to make colossus.
|
easy, just use whitera's special tektiks.
|
On June 07 2011 07:30 wei2coolman wrote:
"hey, if I get a smart unit composition, I can just lol roll all over them in multiple waves, rather than 1 giant 300 food push"
Just think about this for a second, how often did this work in the last MLG? The thing is by the time a Protoss gets a max food army there's nothing a Zerg can do. Ultra/Ling/Baneling is a total gimmick and it's why you see pros not use. Every single Zerg pressured the Protoss, and it's definitely not the way around. If you look at Idra vs MC Game 2 you can see that with his drops he's able to force MC to making Gateway units instead of Tier 3. Or what about any Losira ZvP games? In Losira vs Naniwa he never let Naniwa take that third base, while in MC vs Losira he was all over the map making sure MC doesn't max out on Colossus.
Point is this Warp Prism strategy is only useful in late game (I don't see how it's going to work early off 2 bases ever), but in late game you don't even need it. Forget the whole "I need a new way to play Protoss", you've already found the perfect way. Take it from MC, after his early pushes he will always build up a giant ball on 3 bases before going to attack.
|
Plexa, are you sure that you know what makes a 4 gate an all in? You told a previous poster that "it is as all in as a 4gate". I'm pretty sure it isn't the warping in of your reinforcements that makes a 4 gate all in. It is that you don't have money to make probes or expand. If you are already on 3 bases with 80 probes, then there is nothing all in about it. It is attacking.
If this is all in then the standard protoss style (which I believe uses proxy pylon to reinforce main army) is equally as all in because protoss still be in horrible horrible shape if they lose their whole army without doing significant structural damage to the Zerg.
This is closer to a warp prism harass than it is to a 4gate, because a 4 gate relies on brute force, while this is relying on splitting your opponents army.
And again, like I said in my first post (which you never responded to), just make another warp prism and do a "proper" warp prism harass where you don't have to suicide your units.
|
On June 07 2011 07:35 Anihc wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 07:32 awwnuts07 wrote:On June 07 2011 05:45 ThatGuy89 wrote:
another point is can you really afford to stop collosus or immortal production? you could say that one chronoboosted warp prism might only take 35 ingame seconds to build (no idea how long it takes) but chances are you could lose it or you might even want 2 to hit both his 3rd and main at the same time or alternating. And i wouldnt want to throw another robo just for prism production.
I know MC (might as well reference him since essentially the #1 Toss) stopped Colossi production in his game against Idra on Testbug, even though Idra had like 40 hydras barreling towards his stalkers. I guess when you have 40+ blink stalkers with +3 weapon upgrades, you have enough muscle to keep the zerg army from killing you, however, you can't really kill the zerg either. So it's like this weird stalemate situation. He eventually added DTs to hit those expos his army couldn't get to, but imagine if he had made a warp prism? It's not like he didn't have the space minerals. Same situation happened in a game with Ret. MC didn't make a single colossus, just Blink Stalkers accompanied with a few sentries (Ret wasn't making Hydras though). Eventually he added DTs to the mix, but he could have gotten a warp prism. He had the money and a Robo that was doing absolutely nothing. That's a different scenario. Idra had so many corruptors that's it wasn't worth it for MC to make colossus.
What about the game with Ret? I believe it was game 2 on Metal. I understand not going colossi since Ret's comp was largely Roach, Ling, Infester(?). Wouldn't it have made sense to get a WP since the robo was unused? Or was MC so far ahead after killing so many of Ret's units that it wouldn't have mattered what he built?
Here's the game I'm talking about:
http://www.sc-replay.com/replay/03-06-11/55979-oGsMC-VS-LiquidRet.html
|
The real problem I find with Protoss drops is that at least with Marines, you can pick them all up and save em, especially against Roaches.
But with Protoss, drop mechanics are not only bad (We don't have plentiful of overlords, medivacs that heal, weakest ass dropship material of all things, for the most expensive dropship out of all 3 races), but we can never save enough of our units.
And Protoss relies on having reusable units that don't die so often.
REALLY though, what would make it fair is if Blizzard actually gave warp prism something like 100 shields/100 hp, or even 150 shields/150hp. Just saying ...
|
they could make warp prism just auto-phase everytime it stops (almost instant), you allready have to wait 5 seconds to warp in, no need to wait +4 seconds.
any decent player can kill a warp prism in 10 seconds...
I can even trade the warp prism speed for this
|
On June 07 2011 08:47 ScythedBlade wrote:
The real problem I find with Protoss drops is that at least with Marines, you can pick them all up and save em, especially against Roaches.
But with Protoss, drop mechanics are not only bad (We don't have plentiful of overlords, medivacs that heal, weakest ass dropship material of all things, for the most expensive dropship out of all 3 races), but we can never save enough of our units.
And Protoss relies on having reusable units that don't die so often.
REALLY though, what would make it fair is if Blizzard actually gave warp prism something like 100 shields/100 hp, or even 150 shields/150hp. Just saying ...
I just played a game where I stalled for 2 minutes just alternately spamming zealots into two mineral lines. He just gave up for some reason and tried to attack me.
Zealots are REALLY disposable in PvZ AND PvT. The reason is that they're so cost-efficient with upgrades like Plexa said many times.
Apparently, the guy was really scared of the warp prism.
Also, I saw a post in the thread that says, "Having extra warpgates is good". I find this true.
|
Dunno why anyone has spare minerals in PvZ.. with stalkers costing so much, and on top of that having to wall in every expo that isn't your nat with 3-4 gates + cannons to wall off, and cannons in the mineral lines to fuck up baneling drops.. in fact there's just so many things to spend minerals on to stay safe from zerg multi-prong aggression that i'm never above like 400 minerals unless maxxed..
I think it might be fun to use in a situation where your opponent doesn't actually want to attack you.. or drop you, or harass bases etc, but in that situation you could do literally anything and win.. unless those things line up.. im just not sure where 800-1000 minerals is going to come from any time before the 20 min mark, compared to taking your 4th and walling it off..
Ofc, its cool to have a tl strat thread with no replays :D
|
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/plexa_vs_ray_1.sc2replay
He posted one up in the OP... There is more coming I think.
|
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens.
|
On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens.
Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups.
|
On June 07 2011 11:03 Eleaven wrote:
Dunno why anyone has spare minerals in PvZ.. with stalkers costing so much, and on top of that having to wall in every expo that isn't your nat with 3-4 gates + cannons to wall off, and cannons in the mineral lines to fuck up baneling drops.. in fact there's just so many things to spend minerals on to stay safe from zerg multi-prong aggression that i'm never above like 400 minerals unless maxxed..
I think it might be fun to use in a situation where your opponent doesn't actually want to attack you.. or drop you, or harass bases etc, but in that situation you could do literally anything and win.. unless those things line up.. im just not sure where 800-1000 minerals is going to come from any time before the 20 min mark, compared to taking your 4th and walling it off..
Ofc, its cool to have a tl strat thread with no replays :D
The spare minerals come because your army is so gas heavy especially If you aim for a stalker, immortal, sentry, templar composition.
I've been using warp prisms quite a bit in every match up by going for blink + obs and then after building the obs sneaking a warp prism in. I think they're most effective in pvz because of the damage you can to in a zerg main. You can easily snipe evo chambers and other important tech buildings allowing you to get really far ahead in upgrades or denying zergs from making the units they want which is especially important when zerg wants to remax after a fight. Its really hard for zerg to defend their main if you have your army moving around the map threatening the zergs bases as zerg will want to bring as many units as possible to deal with a strong toss army.
|
On June 07 2011 11:03 Eleaven wrote:
Dunno why anyone has spare minerals in PvZ.. with stalkers costing so much, and on top of that having to wall in every expo that isn't your nat with 3-4 gates + cannons to wall off, and cannons in the mineral lines to fuck up baneling drops.. in fact there's just so many things to spend minerals on to stay safe from zerg multi-prong aggression that i'm never above like 400 minerals unless maxxed..
I think it might be fun to use in a situation where your opponent doesn't actually want to attack you.. or drop you, or harass bases etc, but in that situation you could do literally anything and win.. unless those things line up.. im just not sure where 800-1000 minerals is going to come from any time before the 20 min mark, compared to taking your 4th and walling it off..
Ofc, its cool to have a tl strat thread with no replays :D
Since it's a midgame timing, you'll typically be working off of 2 bases - that's not much to wall off. But anyways, why are you considering wall-offs as something to do with excess minerals? They should be planned and part of a good sim city.
And you will be over 400 minerals if you are waiting for a full round of warp-ins. This strategy really isn't as much of an inconvenience as you make it sound.
My question to Plexa: are you skipping obs to get the warp prism out? Or are you chronoboosting an obs, then a warp prism while your robotics bay is building?
|
Oh I love this topic,
Just a small question, is the speed upgrading for Warprism important for this play style?
How about creating more than one Warprism to make this more powerful?
Thanks for the OP.
|
On June 07 2011 12:41 tienvh wrote:
Oh I love this topic,
Just a small question, is the speed upgrading for Warprism important for this play style?
How about creating more than one Warprism to make this more powerful?
Thanks for the OP.
I was wondering about these questions too.
I bookmarked this. This is the kind of stuff I really want to do in my games. Thank you so much Plexa for contributing greatly to us Protoss players!
|
On June 07 2011 12:41 tienvh wrote:
Oh I love this topic,
Just a small question, is the speed upgrading for Warprism important for this play style?
How about creating more than one Warprism to make this more powerful?
Thanks for the OP.
The speed upgrade for the warp prism is VERY helpful imo because it lets you QUICKLY get from the main to drop a lot of units and then go back to your army or to any other expansion to warp in.
Creating more than one warp prism requires a lot of micro. I'm in masters with decent multitasking and I can barely do well with one warp prism while controlling my army at the same time.
Just my 2 cents.
|
On June 07 2011 10:48 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 08:47 ScythedBlade wrote:
The real problem I find with Protoss drops is that at least with Marines, you can pick them all up and save em, especially against Roaches.
But with Protoss, drop mechanics are not only bad (We don't have plentiful of overlords, medivacs that heal, weakest ass dropship material of all things, for the most expensive dropship out of all 3 races), but we can never save enough of our units.
And Protoss relies on having reusable units that don't die so often.
REALLY though, what would make it fair is if Blizzard actually gave warp prism something like 100 shields/100 hp, or even 150 shields/150hp. Just saying ... I just played a game where I stalled for 2 minutes just alternately spamming zealots into two mineral lines. He just gave up for some reason and tried to attack me. Zealots are REALLY disposable in PvZ AND PvT. The reason is that they're so cost-efficient with upgrades like Plexa said many times. Apparently, the guy was really scared of the warp prism. Also, I saw a post in the thread that says, "Having extra warpgates is good". I find this true.
Ahh, I guess you are buying time for the awesome units then ... =/.
|
i've actually been wondering if using a warp prism + chargelot mass warpin flanking manuever against a hydra army would work. hydras die pretty fast to chargelot if there aren't any roaches to serve as meatshields. if you split roaches from hydras using stalker/sentry/immortal ball and flank with a decent number of chargelots, you could probably clean up zerg without significant need for AOE.
|
White Ra used this very effectively in PvP as well.
In an NASL game against TT1 he used zealot drop harass every time the big colossus ball headed out of the base. It kept the army at home and allowed him to take an economic lead. When TT1 finally went for an attack White Ra dropped AND warped in a round of zealots in his natural for massive damage.
I agree that Warp Prisms should be used much more. I wish I had the multi-tasking to do it well myself 
|
On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups.
Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do
Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X
|
On June 07 2011 13:20 dreamsmasher wrote:
i've actually been wondering if using a warp prism + chargelot mass warpin flanking manuever against a hydra army would work. hydras die pretty fast to chargelot if there aren't any roaches to serve as meatshields. if you split roaches from hydras using stalker/sentry/immortal ball and flank with a decent number of chargelots, you could probably clean up zerg without significant need for AOE.
Probably near impossible since the hydras can back up and kill the prism in 0.2s, and he will have vision of it since behind his hydras = on the creep.
|
United States180 Posts
Question, have you ever thought of getting warp prism speed, picking up something like 4 DTs, dropping them at an expansion, flying the warp prism to the main and then warping in your zealots there while they deal with the DTs?
I've also thought of doing the multiprong blink stalker attack while you warp in units into their main or something like that. That way, you can take minimal losses while doing a good amount of damage yourself. I know it sounds APM intensive but it isn't as bad as you'd think once you warp in those zealots, your almost free to micro your stalker ball through his expansion to snipe it. I find this works against zerg because their hatchery is a lot easier to take down than Terrans PF or OC but also something to consider.
|
More protoss should be doing this. To me this seems more like a mid/late game tactic that protoss can employ when they are already ahead. If a protoss has 6 gates and the ability to make tech units, then the protoss is probably going to win the against the terran, or especially the zerg they are playing against anyways. For well developed protoss armies this concept makes a lot of sense. I imagine pretty soon the pros are going to start doing this in all the matchups at the metagame keeps evolving.
|
On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X
Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP,
Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor.
Kill the orbital.
Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax.
|
On June 07 2011 15:31 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP, Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor. Kill the orbital. Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax.
Or you can cut his reinforcements from reaching his main army. Since the numbers coming out of the buildings will be low you should be able to take them on.
|
On June 07 2011 15:31 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP, Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor. Kill the orbital. Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax.
If it was that easy then it would be awesome, but Terran has repair and often can save a building at the very last moment. Addons are nice but I find killing them much more effective with DT's.
Warping in the Terrans main to me is something that works only when you are ahead, I don't think it is that effective vs Bio, but if Terrans use mech then it might be useful
|
|
|
On June 07 2011 15:39 Basagu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 15:31 canikizu wrote:On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP, Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor. Kill the orbital. Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax. Or you can cut his reinforcements from reaching his main army. Since the numbers coming out of the buildings will be low you should be able to take them on.
That's a given. You kill any living things (or machines) that in your sight.
But I don't really recommend you put too much heart on chasing units though. When Terran got attacked in the base, they will just right click all the raxes ON to the attackers so that when the units just pop out, it will automatically attack the enemies without mis-rallying (some people don't know that it is possible), and we all know what happens when marauders shoot zealots.
So what i'm saying is, those zealots will 100% percent dead, but at least they take some add-ons with them, not chasing units while got slowed.
|
I actully do this as often as I can in all 3 match ups, I use it late game on 3+ bases where toss usually have a huge surplus of minerals
Most effective in PvZ as stated as you can snipe hatcheries etc
I usually stop army production somewhere in the 180-190 range and get a ton of extra gates (like 16-20).
My initial warp in will usually have some dts and zealots because I'm near max and can sapre the gas . But if I have to rebuild my army it will be almost all zealots
|
On June 07 2011 15:45 Dommk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 15:31 canikizu wrote:On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP, Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor. Kill the orbital. Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax. If it was that easy then it would be awesome, but Terran has repair and often can save a building at the very last moment. Addons are nice but I find killing them much more effective with DT's. Warping in the Terrans main to me is something that works only when you are ahead, I don't think it is that effective vs Bio, but if Terrans use mech then it might be useful
If you have DTs, that's nice, but how many dts you can use at that moment?
Remember the drops the OP is trying to tell us are not sneaky drops which you sent 1 dts in and hope it won't get discovered. The drops we are talking about are drops that can cause serious damage if the Terran choose to ignore. It can be in-your-face or sneaky, but it require Terran to send a good amount of army to deal with it.
A DTs can be killed with 1 marauder and 2,3 rines. I doubt you can send 2,3 DTs, because it's such a heavy investment for 1 drop. You need to drop over and over again just like Terran, not doing some doom drop. On the other hands, 4 zealots and another rounds of zealots can cause serious damage for buildings and units if the Terran choose to ignore. You can even do drop with sentries to block the ramp with ff and raid his buildings.
|
I'd like to clarify after reading the OP mo®e clearly. When I do this my economy is developped enough that its not an all-in at all.
Late game my resources may look something like 3000/1500 after an army clash I may start 2 colossus warp in. A couple templar and a bunch of stalkers. Left over with 2k min or w/e if I'm facing zerg I don't want to replenish with zealots so ill warp thouse in locations around the map trying to snipe expansions or tech while I rebuild my army with the gas units I want
vs Terran you can deny PF by dropping about 3 stalkers behind the mineral line out of range of thr PF and just deny their mining. Much cheaper on gas them storm drops
Vs toss zealots or dts to snipe expos. Or key tech like robo/cybercore
|
You shouldn't be using only one Warp Prism at a time, this is exactly why it's useless. It's simple to deal with defending two places at once because most masters/GM players have the macro to deal with it but once you start harassing with 2 or even 3 warp prisms at a time then it starts to become a really powerful tool.
|
On June 07 2011 17:29 Flaunt wrote:
You shouldn't be using only one Warp Prism at a time, this is exactly why it's useless. It's simple to deal with defending two places at once because most masters/GM players have the macro to deal with it but once you start harassing with 2 or even 3 warp prisms at a time then it starts to become a really powerful tool.
That solely depends on what level you're playing, I as a platinum player will have a hard time just attacking/sending 1 wp/keeping up my macro.
Which I'm sure will be pretty hard to defend for another platinum player. Definitely going to give this tactic a go.
|
Speschial daktiks!
I think White-Ra's "Special tactics" is more or less: Flying a warp prism around warping in all sorts of stuff, everywhere! That will sometimes be exactly the same as what Plexa talks about in the op, but as far as i know it's mostly 2-3 DTs here and there.
I like the idea of an overwhelming zealot force right in his base, and will definately try to implement this into my gameplan.
Also, why not warp in a handfull of zealots at green, hide them, fly the prism to blue warp in another handfull and do a two pronged attack? (This will most likely leave you with an inferior standing army on the battlefield, but also leave the opponent with a severe headache, and you're already ahead in a potential "Base Race" if he decides to go down that path)
|
u can also warp in 4 dt's and go straight for the main. works for all 3 races, less to extent for terran. i find this shock and awe tactic needs to be used more.
|
On June 07 2011 15:49 canikizu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2011 15:39 Basagu wrote:On June 07 2011 15:31 canikizu wrote:On June 07 2011 14:06 Dommk wrote:On June 07 2011 11:10 iChau wrote:On June 07 2011 11:05 StatX wrote:
If I understand what youre saying is to bring 1-2 warp prism with your main army and using their mobility more often?
Thats not a bad idea. I have been trying to drop but besides dts, the rest gets taken out rather quickly. Also, terrans will tend to build turrets if they can so the fragile warp prism will not get through.
I guess ill experiment it more and see what happens. Upgraded chargelots in small groups are godly vs other non-p units in small groups. Yeah they are, but they can be run around and delayed, other than killing workers I've never actually done any damage with Zealot warp-ins, building sim-cities and being slow really lowers the amount of damage you can do Against Protoss you can start taking out Pylons and expensive production facilities/Tech, but Z/T it is not quite the same. Against Zerg I just suicide them on certain expensive buildings or hatcheries. But what else is there to kill? Terran I find I do very little damage if at all :X Kill the add-ons. You'll be surprised how effective it will delay Terran's army, given Terran always need to keep up the marauder counts in vP, Kill the ebay, or even armory to stop Terran from upgrade lvl2,3 weapon, armor. Kill the orbital. Remember, a rax that can only produce marines in TvP is a dead rax. Or you can cut his reinforcements from reaching his main army. Since the numbers coming out of the buildings will be low you should be able to take them on. That's a given. You kill any living things (or machines) that in your sight. But I don't really recommend you put too much heart on chasing units though. When Terran got attacked in the base, they will just right click all the raxes ON to the attackers so that when the units just pop out, it will automatically attack the enemies without mis-rallying (some people don't know that it is possible), and we all know what happens when marauders shoot zealots. So what i'm saying is, those zealots will 100% percent dead, but at least they take some add-ons with them, not chasing units while got slowed.
PvT I always trade my 4 chargelots for a lot of SCVs because Terran has the slowest worker production. I then aim for addons.
PvZ I aim for drones if possible, then queens to be annoying. If I see an annoying tech structure (roach warren, greater spire, etc) I will destroy that first.
|
A good tactic against terran is to get the warp prism instead of the observer to scout. Generally if your robo is sufficiently early you can get that prism into your opponents main before he even has a starport, and sometimes stim. This is especially effective against any sort of FE since most terrans will have their rally to their natural by their bunkers. By keeping this prism alive early on you can use it mid game for this strategy.
Against zerg DTs drops/warp-ins are pretty devastating. A really important point is that the warp prisms are also dropships...so you can warp in 4 DTs, save them, then come back with another warp-in so you have 8 DTs. If you can spare the APM saving drop units is very annoying for your opponent (Terran does it why can't we?).
Another thing that is pretty good is to load a probe into the prism and make pylons on hard to reach places (like on one of the watch tower high grounds on xel'naga) or on the edge of cliffs to basically let you have even more options for warp-ins.
|
Something I experienced was that when the toss army engaged me (I'm playing Z) he dropped 3 zealots in my main to snipe my queen and then try to take down tech structures.
If you get the queen you slow down the production for the Z a lot and he almost got my roachwarren but I stopped him in time but it was a nice idea by him. Zealots have high dps and are very cheap but yeah I would like to see Warp prism being used a lot more as the unit have a lot of potential
|
To me this looks like a guideline for a specific build whereas this tactic clearly works in the lategame as well. In my opinion the more bases you have the better this type of play is because if you sit on 200/200 with 4+ bases you can improve your infrastructure by throwing down additional Robotics Facilities and Stargates depending on the matchup and build up a very scary army very quickly with chronoboost while you are attacking multiple locations and kill off expansions with the remainders of your initial army. Using immortals with the warp prisms is a very powerful tool to cripple your opponent's production while DTs and Zealots go to town on everything else. Also if you started early enough you can have proxy pylons all over the place to attack literally every single location on the map obviously.
|
Another excellent thread Plexa. I still remember your awesome PvP mothership and PvZ threads.
I have found myself using the warp prism in a similar fashion PvZ but usually it's more of a lategame thing, usually warping in DTs and tech sniping. It's definitely something that should be incorporated into more of my play though, it can be very effective.
As a note +2 weapon chargelots, utterly murder probes that don't have the armour upgrade. Ironically it's more effective then vs T or Z workers
|
Fuck. Decent protoss that play like this are the only ones I lose to. And now more of them are going to do this.
|
I actually prefer this late game vs zerg. Like hive tech late game. Sniping a morphing in Greater Spire has won me a few games just by saccing like 6 zealots.
Fuck brood lords.
|
I was playing a pvz last night on meta and I thought about this thread. It was one of those awkward games where protoss can't really establish a 3rd safely and zerg is having a hard time securing his own bases and neither player wants to engage directly, as zerg is going roach ling infestor vs templar/stalker army.
So with 1500 minerals and 0 gas I decided to make a warp prism and just dump zealots on zealots on zealots all over zerg's expansions. It was way more effective that I thought it would be. I felt like I was forcing zerg to do things rather than having him force me to do things (99% of my games when I don't do some stupid 2 base play)
So thanks for the inspiration and I'll be making warp prisms much more!
|
i don't know why more players don't do stuff like this. 1 zealot can do a whole lot of damage if you're distracted elsewhere, ask Strelok
|
On June 08 2011 03:16 Alejandrisha wrote:
I was playing a pvz last night on meta and I thought about this thread. It was one of those awkward games where protoss can't really establish a 3rd safely and zerg is having a hard time securing his own bases and neither player wants to engage directly, as zerg is going roach ling infestor vs templar/stalker army.
So with 1500 minerals and 0 gas I decided to make a warp prism and just dump zealots on zealots on zealots all over zerg's expansions. It was way more effective that I thought it would be. I felt like I was forcing zerg to do things rather than having him force me to do things (99% of my games when I don't do some stupid 2 base play)
So thanks for the inspiration and I'll be making warp prisms much more!
Is there any way I can get a copy of that replay? I need all the help I can get in PvZ.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 08 2011 03:16 Alejandrisha wrote:
I was playing a pvz last night on meta and I thought about this thread. It was one of those awkward games where protoss can't really establish a 3rd safely and zerg is having a hard time securing his own bases and neither player wants to engage directly, as zerg is going roach ling infestor vs templar/stalker army.
So with 1500 minerals and 0 gas I decided to make a warp prism and just dump zealots on zealots on zealots all over zerg's expansions. It was way more effective that I thought it would be. I felt like I was forcing zerg to do things rather than having him force me to do things (99% of my games when I don't do some stupid 2 base play)
So thanks for the inspiration and I'll be making warp prisms much more!
haha I've been trying to get some more reps but megalisk is dodging me
|
On June 08 2011 04:39 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2011 03:16 Alejandrisha wrote:
I was playing a pvz last night on meta and I thought about this thread. It was one of those awkward games where protoss can't really establish a 3rd safely and zerg is having a hard time securing his own bases and neither player wants to engage directly, as zerg is going roach ling infestor vs templar/stalker army.
So with 1500 minerals and 0 gas I decided to make a warp prism and just dump zealots on zealots on zealots all over zerg's expansions. It was way more effective that I thought it would be. I felt like I was forcing zerg to do things rather than having him force me to do things (99% of my games when I don't do some stupid 2 base play)
So thanks for the inspiration and I'll be making warp prisms much more! haha I've been trying to get some more reps but megalisk is dodging me
He dodges me too
I think I have some good replays of me doing this from a few weeks ago. When I get home I'll look for them.
Basically in PvZ lately I've liked to go 3 Gate Expand into 4 gate + robo + forge. With the robo I like to get an obs or two out, two if my hallus didn't get me much info (due to zerg burrow or hide tech building, etc). Then I'll almost always get immortals, stalkers, and sentries. This composition is good vs pretty much everything if you have good unit control and army movements/positioning. It's even good vs Hydralisks if you use FF properly. The only thing this doesn't do well against is muta/ling, but the hallus should have spotted this, and you wouldn't be using it against muta/ling.
Next step I like to take is Twilight followed near immediately by dark shrine. Blink gives additional utility to your already existing stalkers, and the twilight gives additional utility to your forge, which gives your army additional strength via upgrades (you should already have 1-1 now). Since you already have a robo out, you should have 1-2 warp prisms out by now. If you have the APM, you'd probably already baited out the Zerg army with scary army movements of your own, only to warp in 4-6 zealots into a base of the zerg. Once the dark shrine comes up, you can place a couple DT into your army, warp in DTs all over with the warp prisms, and create archons to protect your army which is currently slightly prone to mass amounts of weak units (lings/banelings).
Using this sort of game plan in PvZ allows me to defeat my opponent if they cannot match whatever skill I have mechanics wise. If I were to use a more standard death-bally sort of play then my mechanics wouldn't be able to shine through as much, and I could potentially lose to a player with lesser mechanics because of the smaller amount of mechanics needed to play against that style. Lately on ladder I've been winning a lot of PvZ by simply thinking of ways to utilize my mechanical skills (i.e. controlling multiple warp prisms and utilizing smart and effective army positioning/movements, all while macroing properly) and require my opponent to match them in order to win.
|
Haha I just watched the replay I was talking about.. and it's pretty awful. OP is right though; you have a huge mineral surplus in that awkward stage between trying to secure your 3rd and actually beginning to use it. I don't find colossus as fun these days so my robo is usually idle unless I'm getting some immortals out or resupplying observers while putting my gas into templar tech and stalkers and a sentry here and there.
Really, there is no reason not to have a warp prism if you are using this style as there is no way you can use all of your gates constantly while not entirely depleting all of your gas, and zealots are pretty garbage mid game vs zerg anyway (though they do serve a purpose in a game broken wide open and you're harassing with them regardless).
So get that warp prism, and put some zealots in his expansions ^^
I find that these tactics are stronger when you are defending rather than when you are pushing aggressively, as if you are pushing you absolutely need those WG cool downs to reinforce since zergs have become so solid in the mid game and don't really hand out timings that you can exploit without being all-in. It works in conjunction with sharking though infestors become a problem if you don't have enough to engage head on, in which case you don't want to be warping zealots remotely o_0
|
Great read, thanks for posting this.
I'm definetly going to start using warp prisms more, although i have to stop collossus production for a bit, which sucks.
|
I actually use this a lot in PvP. When I engage, I like to warp 3-4 zealots in the mineral line of my enemy. Pretty damn efficient most of the time. You need to be slightly ahead to do this though.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 08 2011 08:00 Alejandrisha wrote:
Haha I just watched the replay I was talking about.. and it's pretty awful. OP is right though; you have a huge mineral surplus in that awkward stage between trying to secure your 3rd and actually beginning to use it. I don't find colossus as fun these days so my robo is usually idle unless I'm getting some immortals out or resupplying observers while putting my gas into templar tech and stalkers and a sentry here and there.
Really, there is no reason not to have a warp prism if you are using this style as there is no way you can use all of your gates constantly while not entirely depleting all of your gas, and zealots are pretty garbage mid game vs zerg anyway (though they do serve a purpose in a game broken wide open and you're harassing with them regardless).
So get that warp prism, and put some zealots in his expansions ^^
I find that these tactics are stronger when you are defending rather than when you are pushing aggressively, as if you are pushing you absolutely need those WG cool downs to reinforce since zergs have become so solid in the mid game and don't really hand out timings that you can exploit without being all-in. It works in conjunction with sharking though infestors become a problem if you don't have enough to engage head on, in which case you don't want to be warping zealots remotely o_0
I've noticed that a few of the top protoss at the moment are making excellent use of pylons to reinforce. Suppose you also had a prism on the field, then you'd have the choice I was discussing in the OP whether to warp in by your proxy pylon (to reinforce your army) or harass his main (via the prism). Again, hard as balls to execute but sounds promising.
|
I just wish Zealots were better at destroying mineral lines, although I guess this would be pretty epic if it's a chargelot vs mmm situation and they need to kite continuously.
|
On June 08 2011 09:09 youngminii wrote:
I just wish Zealots were better at destroying mineral lines, although I guess this would be pretty epic if it's a chargelot vs mmm situation and they need to kite continuously.
4 chargelots can kill a ton of workers.
Considering that you have more than 6 gateways, you can have more than 4 chargelots. That is painful to the mineral line especially since you CAN'T escape the chargelots.
|
omg this is so good late game...
how about hiding transporting over 6 sentries away from the heat of battle after the initial splash of FFs into the prism... then yea drop them in the main and perma FF the ramp...
with perma FF and if he has say half of his unit producing structures outside his main...there's no way his effective halved production can effectively compete with your full production of warp units
after the zealots cleaned all the detection up...you can drop some DTs and severely cripple the entire base with good DT spread...6 DTs would basically stop all infantry production
this is beyond awesome...
|
On June 07 2011 07:36 elitesniper420 wrote:Forget the whole "I need a new way to play Protoss", you've already found the perfect way.
It' s really weird that you'd make this claim based on PvZ at MLG, given that match results for MLG PvZ were something like 35/65% in favor of the Zerg. This corresponds with recent trends in Korea, where PvZ was 30/70% in favor of the Zerg according to the most recent April SC2Statistics. This matchup has been gradually tilting in Zerg's favor for a while, and anyone can see that it's because Zerg are playing differently than 2 months ago and Protoss are not.
In terms of micro potential vs. utilization the Warp Prism is one of the least exploited units in the game, I think.
|
On June 08 2011 08:36 iNbluE wrote:
I actually use this a lot in PvP. When I engage, I like to warp 3-4 zealots in the mineral line of my enemy. Pretty damn efficient most of the time. You need to be slightly ahead to do this though.
I find that it's a bit risky because in PvP, the food count of the armies REALLY matter.
|
On June 08 2011 10:11 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2011 09:09 youngminii wrote:
I just wish Zealots were better at destroying mineral lines, although I guess this would be pretty epic if it's a chargelot vs mmm situation and they need to kite continuously. 4 chargelots can kill a ton of workers. Considering that you have more than 6 gateways, you can have more than 4 chargelots. That is painful to the mineral line especially since you CAN'T escape the chargelots.
It sure kills a few workers, just not a lot.
I've played two games today where 4 Hellions killed two entire mineral lines during an engagement. It just makes me wish that Protoss had something better to harass mineral lines with than Zealots that are guaranteed a SINGLE hit, while you need 3 hits to kill an SCV. I guess I'll make do with DTs.
Oh well, I love Warp Prisms though.
|
Reavers in BW in a shuttle were decent at clearing mineral lines in games with my friends, then they would roll me cause i sucked at Brood war.
EDIT: and i agree with the OP here that the potential use for the warp prism has not been used effectively in competitive play yet, especially in non robo based compositions. Assuming julyzergs 818 APM, having 3 warprisms harassing bases seems like a really potent way to cripple your opponent late game, as zealots are pretty efficient at cleaning up static defense in larger numbers.
|
On June 08 2011 08:46 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2011 08:00 Alejandrisha wrote:
Haha I just watched the replay I was talking about.. and it's pretty awful. OP is right though; you have a huge mineral surplus in that awkward stage between trying to secure your 3rd and actually beginning to use it. I don't find colossus as fun these days so my robo is usually idle unless I'm getting some immortals out or resupplying observers while putting my gas into templar tech and stalkers and a sentry here and there.
Really, there is no reason not to have a warp prism if you are using this style as there is no way you can use all of your gates constantly while not entirely depleting all of your gas, and zealots are pretty garbage mid game vs zerg anyway (though they do serve a purpose in a game broken wide open and you're harassing with them regardless).
So get that warp prism, and put some zealots in his expansions ^^
I find that these tactics are stronger when you are defending rather than when you are pushing aggressively, as if you are pushing you absolutely need those WG cool downs to reinforce since zergs have become so solid in the mid game and don't really hand out timings that you can exploit without being all-in. It works in conjunction with sharking though infestors become a problem if you don't have enough to engage head on, in which case you don't want to be warping zealots remotely o_0 I've noticed that a few of the top protoss at the moment are making excellent use of pylons to reinforce. Suppose you also had a prism on the field, then you'd have the choice I was discussing in the OP whether to warp in by your proxy pylon (to reinforce your army) or harass his main (via the prism). Again, hard as balls to execute but sounds promising.
If your attacking, it seems like it might be a good time to warp in DT's into someones main. Usually the detector static D (cept cannons) cannot fend for itself. So the DT's can roam free and snipe things (including the detection). It would probably be hard to focus too much on the DT's if you aren't already winning the engagement or doing a fairly good job in the engagement. Its probably been said, but I think it would be worth mentioning again, cause who looks in their base for DT's when they are engaged in the middle of the map.
|
You don't even really need charge to make them effective. Hatchery sniping can be just as good in some circumstances, and you'd be amazed how quickly 4-8 zealots can take down a hatch. You can snag a few drone kills as well, but you force the zerg to pull roaches to deal with the threat and anytime you FORCE your opponent to move, you create an opening somewhere else. What is the zerg going to do? Make 4 spines and 2 spores at every single base? They are too proud to do that, and you know it
|
+ Show Spoiler +While I agree with your basic premise that warp prisms are under-used and have much more potential, I feel you slightly over-estimate the warp-in mechanic. Its not quite as simple as "warp in anywhere you like to fluster your opponent" and its by no means superior to the Terran drops.
You still have to get a warp prism to the location to do it, and if you're going to do that, you may as well fill it up to begin with and just do a normal drop, enabling you to leave with your units intact if possible.
Having played both Protoss extensively, and Terran to some degree, the amount of reliable damage I can inflict with medivac drops when I play Terran far outshines the amount of damage I have ever managed to do with warp prisms, not to mention that you have to specifically go and make a warp prism to do drops, whereas medivacs are always floating around the place in a Terran army because of their utility in battle.
I agree that the warp prism is under-used. But to boil it down and try to say "just make a warp prism and warp some shit in their base, now you can do what Terran does to you!" is quite an exaggeration.
Original post spoilered for history, but I'll point out that I retract what I said above after a more thorough re-read of the overview.
|
Where exactly did Plexa say this is superior to Terran drops?
|
On June 08 2011 16:10 youngminii wrote:
Where exactly did Plexa say this is superior to Terran drops?
Just the general impression that I got.
Rereading the article more carefully, though, I can see how that wasn't his stated intent at all. I'm going to edit my post.
|
have you tried....the colossus drop?! lol
Jokes aside, as a zerg player, I have always wondered why not a lot of protoss use the wrap prism to harass.
zealots are great to kill off zerglings, which are usually the quickest to get there to clean up the drop.
Dark templar needless to say, are super good with razing buildings.
most who uses dark templar just charging them into the front line where spores and overseers are located.
Every zerg player scream if any of their tech building is under heavy fire,
The cooldown on warp gate is seriously so good that it makes me want to change my race sometimes.
This idea really make use of this advantage well.
It is not rare that while my reinforcement are coming from each hatchery, the protoss has his reinforcement already and with forcefield splitting the army even more, it is just depressing.
|
On June 08 2011 11:30 iChau wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2011 08:36 iNbluE wrote:
I actually use this a lot in PvP. When I engage, I like to warp 3-4 zealots in the mineral line of my enemy. Pretty damn efficient most of the time. You need to be slightly ahead to do this though. I find that it's a bit risky because in PvP, the food count of the armies REALLY matter.
That's why you need to be slightly ahead
|
I always want this to work well and sometimes try it but too many things keep it down from being effective for me:
1. With the exception of the DT there isn't really a good unit to warp in. Zealots are too slow, stalkers don't do enough damage etc. One of the better units to just drop instead of warp in is actually the archon, it can 1 shot drones (assuming 2 upgrades by this point in PvZ), is amazing around mineral lines and the shields can be abused very easily (they regenerate inside the prism).
2. It is too easy to defend against warp prism harass. It is too fragile and robo nearly always causes your opponent to make some anti-air already. Warping in also takes slightly too long usually and terran always has units in near his base (as his rax are there) and zerg has a queen.
3. Warp prism is too costly and takes up valuable build time from the robo.
The only scenario's where I like warp prism use is when you have no intention of getting colossi, robo build time doesn't matter much then and there won't be any AA out or if there is it's useless. Against heavy ling style zerg this somtimes happens as colo aren't really good against pure ling + bane/muta/infestor. The best to abuse this lack of anti-air for zerg is with archon drops imo.
An other scenario i like warp prism is when I play robo against blink stalkers in PvP where air distance is fairly close. The blink stalker player will often camp outside your base with 1 sentry so you can't move out unless you have archons/colossi, both very hard to get if you are forced into alot of immortals. Warp prism can then send some stuff over to their main forcing him to lift the lock on your ramp at which point you can expand or attack their expo.
Best and most usage of warp prism is from white-ra imo, only player i've seen it do alot actually.
|
I do this all the time but I use the mothership also. Oh yeah, I like to load up warp prism with Z's, unload zealots at expansion and then warp in at main if they are close enough... usually after they go for one or the other, and I keep going back and forth.
I also drop Immortals right on zerg tech structures for complete destruction.
|
Did someone just sincerely say Zerg is too proud to spend 750 minerals at every single base? Seriously? I know a lot of Protoss that love to just mineral dump cannons into their thirds but... you want me.. to spend... somewhere between 3000 and 4500 minerals on static defense...
Okay. Can I has powerful units that do well in balls too?
|
On June 08 2011 22:54 Probe1 wrote:
Did someone just sincerely say Zerg is too proud to spend 750 minerals at every single base? Seriously? I know a lot of Protoss that love to just mineral dump cannons into their thirds but... you want me.. to spend... somewhere between 3000 and 4500 minerals on static defense...
Okay. Can I has powerful units that do well in balls too?
I can't tell if you are agreeing or disagreeing or balancewhining :/ Please explain yourself.
You don't see zergs going as overboard on static defense simply because they're units are much faster. Hell, speed roaches have 3.9 speed on creep which is ridiculously fast, and lings have what, 6+? Thus, static defense is not as important given the relatively slow movement of the protoss army coupled by the fact that protoss lacks a reliable, fast harass unit (besides dt in a prism, I suppose)
|
On June 08 2011 22:54 Probe1 wrote:
Okay. Can I has powerful units that do well in balls too?
Hey Broodlords
Ultralisks ARE the ball too.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/plexa_vs_energizer.sc2replay
Managed to get it right once in this game. Big hydra/roach vs colossus/stalker engagement while i simultaneously warp in zealots and snipe off hydra tech and roach tech. Pretty strange game anyway I use this in the battle at about 30:00. Lots of people are getting this confused with general warp prism harass - this is different, it's a calculated strike to completely incapacitate your enemy (well, overstatement but you get the idea ).
Here is what happens - in pictures:
+ Show Spoiler +Here is a battle. While the Zerg is completely committed to this fight I'm warping in Zealots into his base: I send the Zealots to kill off his tech - in particular his hydra den and roach warren: Hydra den dead, roach warren will die shortly after. Battle over, but he's not going to be building any more hydralisks or roaches. Plus his reinforcements need to tend to my zealots, else lose the rest of his tech. This allows me to push forward and sentry abuse his split forces and gain a massive adv.
|
On June 09 2011 02:34 Plexa wrote:http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/sc2_reps/plexa_vs_energizer.sc2replayManaged to get it right once in this game. Big hydra/roach vs colossus/stalker engagement while i simultaneously warp in zealots and snipe off hydra tech and roach tech. Pretty strange game anyway I use this in the battle at about 30:00. Lots of people are getting this confused with general warp prism harass - this is different, it's a calculated strike to completely incapacitate your enemy (well, overstatement but you get the idea ). Here is what happens - in pictures: + Show Spoiler +Here is a battle. While the Zerg is completely committed to this fight I'm warping in Zealots into his base: I send the Zealots to kill off his tech - in particular his hydra den and roach warren: Hydra den dead, roach warren will die shortly after. Battle over, but he's not going to be building any more hydralisks or roaches. Plus his reinforcements need to tend to my zealots, else lose the rest of his tech. This allows me to push forward and sentry abuse his split forces and gain a massive adv.
Very cool, Plexa. Thanks for the replay. I think this is a great example I can model my PvZ after (except for the base trade craziness, but I guess it couldn't be helped).
|
Ouch you did that all off of 2 base? Now just imagine if instead of Colossus you had DT tech. Imagine you have sentry immortal stalker, a couple DT in your army and a couple Archon. Then, you warp in zealots into one base and DT into another. It would be really hard to not die if a protoss pulls that off.
|
really nice to see this in action. this seems way too high level for me to pull it off personally, but it'll be cool if more pros start using it.
|
This was probably said, but if what you want is to destroy production wouldn't it be a good investment to carry 2 Immortals in that warp prism too?
2 Immortals are not really going to help a lot in the main battle if you are stalker heavy and they do a ridiculous amount of damage to Buildings.
Of course it would require a little more multitasking(unloading the Immortals and then warping in the Zealots) but I see it as being better.And with a Terran going Marauder Heavy those Immortals will do a lot of damage to his reinforcements. Ofc you wouldn't want to lose those Immortal.
BTW today I saw Grubby doing something similar in his stream and it worker pretty well.(only with Zealots btw)
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 09 2011 04:59 CecilSunkure wrote:
Ouch you did that all off of 2 base? Now just imagine if instead of Colossus you had DT tech. Imagine you have sentry immortal stalker, a couple DT in your army and a couple Archon. Then, you warp in zealots into one base and DT into another. It would be really hard to not die if a protoss pulls that off.
Um. Not exactly We kinda killed each others bases haha originally it was 3 vs 9, but it turned into 12 vs 6
|
One thing I'd recommend is bringing some HTs along for the ride INSIDE the Warp Prism, if you have a few to spare and enough multitasking to make use of them. Another thing to do would be in the late game use two or more of these at the same time, forcing your opponent to react perfectly or suffer severe losses. It only takes a handful of Zealots to do serious damage, so by forcing your opponent to choose between engaging with their main army, defending their main, and defending an expo, you essentially guarantee some form of damage. A lot of people would even panic at that point and not do anything right. Best of all, the micro involved is a+left click. Nothing on you, everything on them. Perfect.
|
One thing that I have noted with this build in a P v T matchup is that it can work in early game: allow me to explain a little bit. I experimented in some P v T matchups a while ago where I used some drop tactics but it was a combo play.
In those games I would press a forward attack- usually at about 55 supply or so providing that they were still on one base and they were bunkered down-it worked best on Taldarim Altar I noted due to the nature of the base (although I could see this working equally as well if not better if they are on their natural). I would plant down a proxy pylon at the front and have a primarily stalker/sentry composition and then just press at the front and pick off what I could while minimizing losses-taking out a tech lab is devastating early on in the game. The reason for stalker sentry combo is that I can have longer range and can snipe structures while also planting down forcefields and guardian shields to cover that army while ensuring no pursuit from terrans (and if they pursue actually come to think of it, the consequences for them could be even worse). While this was going on I could drop Zealots into the mineral line or back of the base.
Take into account as well in the early game that economy is more critical-even if I lose those zealots-let's say I warp 3 in-if I lose them and they lose nothing (let's say they micro and respond to it perfectly), I have lost 300 minerals but how much did they lose in mining at the beginning of the game-if they lost 300 in income than it is a fair trade is it not? I am macroing and building probes and possibly expanding if I want behind this push. I am gaining an economic advantage.
Also take into account the fact that in order to defend a push at the rear from zealots, they must pull units from their bunkers or the front to defend giving your stalker sentry force a potential advantage in that fight and an ability to pick off more. I have had games where I did that and Terrans just up and left the game. They lose economy if they don't go back and defend but they lose their front and a barracks and supply depot or tech lab or something if they don't engage the front. What kind of choice is that for a Terran player lol?
Perhaps an early game application for those you out there who have struggled with P v T matchups? Does this sound viable in Masters league? I am Diamond level and it works most of the times I have tried it (I should try it more truth be told).
|
What happened to Blitzkrieg?
i like this strat. using the strength of toss units and the mobility makes it a force to be reckoned with, Even a terran like me would fear such a strategy even with the power of Planetary Fortress
|
United States180 Posts
Again, I think people are talking bad about protoss mobility but late game, they have some serious threats. Blink stalkers harassing one base while warping in zealots in his main is a pretty awesome thing to watch because you can most likely get away with your stalkers relatively unscathed but you force a reaction out of your opponent which gives your zealots free reign in their base for a good 30 seconds and when he turns around to deal with the threat, you can run back with the blink stalkers and distract him again for another warp in round of zealots. It sounds very micro intensive (and it is) but I feel like this is something that can be exploited with very gateway heavy builds that Toss have been doing lately (hello Archons)
|
What is the consensus on Gravitic Drives? For 100/100 having prisms go as fast as stimmed marines sounds useful
|
Been using this to pretty good effect in masters league pvz, either 3gate expo or forge fe into a 6-7gate blink timing with obs and upgrades etc, but then expand and just show your army in the middle, then put the prism to work and make them sweat :D very good fun! thank you plexa ^^
|
thank-you plexa! this is the best post I've seen in recent memory. the only one I feel will have a lasting effect on the game, you have made this protoss completely rethink his prism usage. so bravo on advancing the state of the game for toss! I feel like most posts are about how to beat the deathball as t or z, with all the creativity coming out of zerg. this has helped us immensely only time will tell if its as effective as it sounds like it will be, but I'm super excited to try!
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 09 2011 07:10 Mediafriend wrote:
thank-you plexa! this is the best post I've seen in recent memory. the only one I feel will have a lasting effect on the game, you have made this protoss completely rethink his prism usage. so bravo on advancing the state of the game for toss! I feel like most posts are about how to beat the deathball as t or z, with all the creativity coming out of zerg. this has helped us immensely only time will tell if its as effective as it sounds like it will be, but I'm super excited to try!
I think you are vastly over estimating how useful this post is I've said it before, and I'll say it again... its really difficult to get right or even utilise (one of the reasons there are so few reps) but it's something to keep in mind going into the midgame/lategame. Protoss, however, should be thinking about ways to get psi matrix everywhere for warpins as it should be used more often. I'm thinking about building pylons in as many different "hidden" locations as possible and using that to reinforce (rather than rely on a prism). I'll let you know how that pans out
|
put a probe into the prism and fly around dropping pylons in sneaky places, after the 'i'm gonna check every corner of my base in case there's a pylon here' phase.
|
On June 09 2011 07:13 Plexa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 07:10 Mediafriend wrote:
thank-you plexa! this is the best post I've seen in recent memory. the only one I feel will have a lasting effect on the game, you have made this protoss completely rethink his prism usage. so bravo on advancing the state of the game for toss! I feel like most posts are about how to beat the deathball as t or z, with all the creativity coming out of zerg. this has helped us immensely only time will tell if its as effective as it sounds like it will be, but I'm super excited to try! I think you are vastly over estimating how useful this post is I've said it before, and I'll say it again... its really difficult to get right or even utilise (one of the reasons there are so few reps) but it's something to keep in mind going into the midgame/lategame. Protoss, however, should be thinking about ways to get psi matrix everywhere for warpins as it should be used more often. I'm thinking about building pylons in as many different "hidden" locations as possible and using that to reinforce (rather than rely on a prism). I'll let you know how that pans out
Yeah, its basically a post about playing a harassy style as Protoss like Terran when Terran goes nuts with drop to build its 1-push-win-army or Zerg when Zerg goes mass muta against Terran or when Zerg goes roach drop vs Protoss.
Its nice but I feel that it'll fall to map designers to make high level WP harass more useful than the current standard of giant unit ball or going straight air in most situations. Some of the blizzard maps are really good for it due to the massive amount of edge space and unopenness of the maps.
Its a lot like the ridges/lack of ridges contributing to the scariness of muta harass in BW.
|
In a lategame PvP I got a probe in a prism and build a pylon in my buddies main's simcity. Similar colors ftw.
|
On June 09 2011 07:59 Antisocialmunky wrote:Show nested quote +On June 09 2011 07:13 Plexa wrote:On June 09 2011 07:10 Mediafriend wrote:
thank-you plexa! this is the best post I've seen in recent memory. the only one I feel will have a lasting effect on the game, you have made this protoss completely rethink his prism usage. so bravo on advancing the state of the game for toss! I feel like most posts are about how to beat the deathball as t or z, with all the creativity coming out of zerg. this has helped us immensely only time will tell if its as effective as it sounds like it will be, but I'm super excited to try! I think you are vastly over estimating how useful this post is I've said it before, and I'll say it again... its really difficult to get right or even utilise (one of the reasons there are so few reps) but it's something to keep in mind going into the midgame/lategame. Protoss, however, should be thinking about ways to get psi matrix everywhere for warpins as it should be used more often. I'm thinking about building pylons in as many different "hidden" locations as possible and using that to reinforce (rather than rely on a prism). I'll let you know how that pans out Yeah, its basically a post about playing a harassy style as Protoss like Terran when Terran goes nuts with drop to build its 1-push-win-army or Zerg when Zerg goes mass muta against Terran or when Zerg goes roach drop vs Protoss. Its nice but I feel that it'll fall to map designers to make high level WP harass more useful than the current standard of giant unit ball or going straight air in most situations. Some of the blizzard maps are really good for it due to the massive amount of edge space and unopenness of the maps. Its a lot like the ridges/lack of ridges contributing to the scariness of muta harass in BW.
I find that harassing with blink stalkers while warping in chargelots in the main is pretty much "impossible" to hold.
Chargelots excel in high numbers vs MMM, but they also excel in small numbers. By using stalkers, you're forcing him to protect his expansions from the more mobile stalkers and to protect his main and buildings from all the zealots.
I think the warp prism is kinda squishy, but as long as youc ontrol it well it's okay.
What I do:
Get charge/blink, warp speed upgrade, and ground attack/armor upgrades.
Warp in a shitload of zealots into the main.
Attack with your mobile stalkers at another base.
Warp more units to attack another base.
Keep macroing, get an economy, and get the more gas-intensive units.
Win if he can't handle the massive amounts of gateway units or get really ahead in economy and tech because he can barely hold off the multiple attacks.
|
Sometimes I wish that Desert Oasis was back in the map pool because Warp Prism play was so good on that map but then I remember that banshees exist and they kill all your hopes and dreams on that map.
Kulas was good for it too.
|
Enjoyed this article, thanks Plexa..
I have incorporating WP drops a lot more, but always in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I have some ideas now ;-)
Cheers
|
A zerg just called me cheesy for doing this, I wonder if he's never played against a terran? o.o
|
I just did this vs a Terran in Meta close-air.
Although he beats back my main army, I constantly harass him with the left-over stalkers so he can't finish off my chargelots (in his main). I start pushing his 3rd with stalkers/archons when he moves out and he decides to stay with it.
I win eventually because I can still make units and he can't.
I had 3 warp prisms, one in his main, one near his 3rd, and one following my army. I really think that warp prisms are so awesome now. I win the basetrade, but imagine if it's a large map.. He wouldn't even be able to base race and he would probably crumble to the harass instead of trying a last-ditch effort to destroy my nexii.
|
I tried this yesterday against a terran and I poked his front with my main army and pretended like I was going to attack (threw up 1 GS) while I had a warp prism in the back of his main and then I backed off and warped in 6 or 7 chargelots and they ripped his supply depots apart. I was able to pick off some of his reinforcements and make him supply blocked, I was then able to pump out more units while he had like 5 or 6 SCVs start building depots.
It worked great!
|
White-Ra uses this technique in almost every game if you watch his stream I really recommend everyone tune in to watch it in action.
|
On June 10 2011 11:54 iChau wrote:
I just did this vs a Terran in Meta close-air.
Although he beats back my main army, I constantly harass him with the left-over stalkers so he can't finish off my chargelots (in his main). I start pushing his 3rd with stalkers/archons when he moves out and he decides to stay with it.
I win eventually because I can still make units and he can't.
I had 3 warp prisms, one in his main, one near his 3rd, and one following my army. I really think that warp prisms are so awesome now. I win the basetrade, but imagine if it's a large map.. He wouldn't even be able to base race and he would probably crumble to the harass instead of trying a last-ditch effort to destroy my nexii.
I'd be really interested to see that replay if you're willing to share.
|
Thanks Plexa for this Thread! It was really inspiring and it helped me a lot with my mid and especially late game vT and vZ.
As us said especially againts Zerg this is brutal. When I am on 3 bases I fake push with my main army to draw the Zerg's attention, but I stay in a defensive position. When I see his army moving I warp in Chargelots and DTs in his main to snipe Warrens, Dens, Mounts, Spire and Caverns to prevent him from reinforcing. It's awesome!
|
Hey guys, copy/pasted from the 'simple Qs & As' thread...
I had an idea I wanted to discuss but it doesn't seem worthy of its own thread, so...
PvT, 1base robo before expand is unpopular now because if terran goes for a FE build you are very behind in economy. Right?
But on maps with small ramps between main & natural (xel naga etc), I think gate->robo->gate->gate could be very very good vs FE builds. With the robo, make observer, immortal, PRISM and add a 4th gate instead of continuing immortals which are too slow to reinforce. Possibly you could skip the immortal entirely if you've already spotted a FE build, idunno what's optimal.
Load a sentry + probe + maybe another unit or two into the prism and send it into the terran main near-ish the ramp, while attacking the front with your immortal + stalkers + whatever else. Probe's job is to make a pylon, so you can move the prism to his mineral line when the pylon completes. If he doesn't see the prism or sends only a handful of units to deal with it, warp into his main, kill the units, and FF the ramp. If he sends many units into the main to deal with the prism, FF his units into his main (if possible), warp into the front and attack head-on.
If you're able to FF his ramp it's gonna be GG as you pick off his reinforcing units a few at a time. If you're able to draw his units far enough into his main that you can kill his bunkers, it's gonna be GG. So the question is, could a skillful terran who spots the prism be able to chase it away AND hold the front?
Obviously this two-pronged attack is going to have to hit around your 2nd-4th round of warpins, so that a single round of warpins will make up a significant % of your army. Later than that is def not gonna work.
Well, that's it. Viable?
|
Best use of this strat is to draw attention of Zerg army at the front then split them in half when you can
|
Nice! i will use this in PvZ!
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
|
On June 11 2011 08:33 Keilah wrote:
Hey guys, copy/pasted from the 'simple Qs & As' thread...
I had an idea I wanted to discuss but it doesn't seem worthy of its own thread, so...
PvT, 1base robo before expand is unpopular now because if terran goes for a FE build you are very behind in economy. Right?
But on maps with small ramps between main & natural (xel naga etc), I think gate->robo->gate->gate could be very very good vs FE builds. With the robo, make observer, immortal, PRISM and add a 4th gate instead of continuing immortals which are too slow to reinforce. Possibly you could skip the immortal entirely if you've already spotted a FE build, idunno what's optimal.
Load a sentry + probe + maybe another unit or two into the prism and send it into the terran main near-ish the ramp, while attacking the front with your immortal + stalkers + whatever else. Probe's job is to make a pylon, so you can move the prism to his mineral line when the pylon completes. If he doesn't see the prism or sends only a handful of units to deal with it, warp into his main, kill the units, and FF the ramp. If he sends many units into the main to deal with the prism, FF his units into his main (if possible), warp into the front and attack head-on.
If you're able to FF his ramp it's gonna be GG as you pick off his reinforcing units a few at a time. If you're able to draw his units far enough into his main that you can kill his bunkers, it's gonna be GG. So the question is, could a skillful terran who spots the prism be able to chase it away AND hold the front?
Obviously this two-pronged attack is going to have to hit around your 2nd-4th round of warpins, so that a single round of warpins will make up a significant % of your army. Later than that is def not gonna work.
Well, that's it. Viable?
I tried this but it's very hard to pull off. The problem with early warp prism attacks imo is that you are investing 400m 100g to get one drop unit that hardly helps with anything else. Because of that the will simply have so much more units often that they can simply split and still survive.
|
i have always been thinking about this. i play toss and would like to import the drop mechanics of terran. this is a half-drop mechanic so nice post
|
|
|
this is actually briliant. Why doesnt the military hire pro starcraft players. Our wars would be so much more effective if we could just six pool but yes in all seriousness this was very well thought out. and this should definatly be watched for in the future. I do have to mention, why doesnt employ the nydus worm like this. It would be so useful.
|
This is great because it brings in a new life to the warp prism that I stongly believe Protoss players need to use more.
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
On June 12 2011 21:25 TheLOLas wrote:this is actually briliant. Why doesnt the military hire pro starcraft players. Our wars would be so much more effective if we could just six pool but yes in all seriousness this was very well thought out. and this should definatly be watched for in the future. I do have to mention, why doesnt employ the nydus worm like this. It would be so useful.
Nydus worms don't work like this. Let me try outline the difference:
Warp prisms used in this manner are simply reallocating new resources to different parts of the map. You can have X units +Y more units per cycle, it just depends on where you want those additional Y units to go. We use the warp prism to choose where these addition Y units are being placed.
Nydus worms are different, the zerg army is always going to have X units and their reinforcements are collect at the rally point. In this sense, Nydus worms are reorganising existing resources. What the nydus worm does is increase the mobility of a Zerg army. It allows X units to get from A to B in no time. As zerg becomes more expansive, nydus's should be used to connect bases together and launch attacks on outlying expansions. The idea being that if you attack an outlying expansion with a nydus then the opponent must react by defending or countering. In either case, you use the Nydus worm to instantly get back to where you came from meaning you invested a minimal amount to shut down an expansion.
|
1 viking split off the pack does wonders at shutting down warp prism harass.
|
i love doing this with dropping zealots and warping in dts makes for great harass and multi prong attacks
|
I've been thinking about warp prism plays for awhile now, and found it extremely useful in pvp if your opponents are going chargelot archon, cause you can spot with your observer (and they won't have one XD) where there army is and keep them in their base where there army isn't by simple lot drops.
helps you get an expo up and completely trash their base if they decide to move out... haven't lost with it yet!
But this is the first time i've seen a way to use prisms in the other matches aside from dts, which doesn't fit me. I'm going to try it in PvT, although it sounds like it might have problems. I'd love some replays
It definitely sounds like it will work in PvZ, and i was thinking maybe make it less all in by ff army and retreating if their army is too big and then a sentry warped in their main to ff ramp and have more time to do damage... altho this is pure theory crafting, and i'm sure my plans will fail when i put them into play
Great Ideas though. tyty for taking the initiative to make protoss more annoying. everyone knows we need to be XD
|
http://www.mediafire.com/?7cc5zkwvxxcf3b7
10 or so replays of me using warp prisms.
Out of every game I was able to use a warp prism in (I mean not dying in early game), I won.
I suggest the "base trade one", the "epic PvZ", "warp prism harass all over", "warp prism action vs lingblingzerg", "warp prism + pylon", "wawrp prism and pylons", and "warp prisms in pvz awesomeness".
|
I love your post Plexa. My one reservation is describing this as a midgame all in. Protoss are generally the weakest race in the midgame. A midgame MM stim push or a sudden zerg larva surge will crush a protoss caught out of position. I suppose on three bases it can techmically still be midgame but I assume you have a pretty big army when you do this. I often use a very early warp prism against terran; Either to force him to turn back if he moves out early, or to punish the natural if he pulls too many units back to defend. My motives are to delay his push so I can get storm, or to forcefoeld the ramp and snipe the natural if he goves me an openning. Under no circumstances do I engage his main army directly until I get my upgrades or gas tech units.
Am I correct to assume this push works best whem you are close to maxed? It seems like attempting this too early in the game would be really risky.
|
On June 13 2011 11:51 iChau wrote:http://www.mediafire.com/?7cc5zkwvxxcf3b7 10 or so replays of me using warp prisms. Out of every game I was able to use a warp prism in (I mean not dying in early game), I won. I suggest the "base trade one", the "epic PvZ", "warp prism harass all over", "warp prism action vs lingblingzerg", "warp prism + pylon", "wawrp prism and pylons", and "warp prisms in pvz awesomeness".
Thanks very much for this, I will watch these with interest!
|
How about warping in one/two sentries and rest zealots so you can FF trap the workers.
|
On June 13 2011 21:23 Mr Pink wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2011 11:51 iChau wrote:http://www.mediafire.com/?7cc5zkwvxxcf3b7 10 or so replays of me using warp prisms. Out of every game I was able to use a warp prism in (I mean not dying in early game), I won. I suggest the "base trade one", the "epic PvZ", "warp prism harass all over", "warp prism action vs lingblingzerg", "warp prism + pylon", "wawrp prism and pylons", and "warp prisms in pvz awesomeness". Thanks very much for this, I will watch these with interest!
All warp prism plays are around 15 minutes in. It's nothing to "surprise" or "awe" you dramatically. It's just a simple little trick that can end the game as long as you did it well.
I have to admit though, my play in those games were bad. I was actually never used to warp prism harass. I didn't use the "0" control group well (it's Space). I'm practicing though and I'll upload better replays. :D
|
I'm not sure if this qualifies as "Shock and Awe", but it definitely is "Annoying and aggravating." In any case, I think this is a great example of Warp Prism usage.
Download the Ro16 files from the Teamspeak TL Open
Look for Inka vs Ryze
It's very similar to iChau's style, (give your opponent a hard time while you tech) but with more of an emphasis on gateway/templar tech rather than colossi play.
|
|
|
Canada13389 Posts
Ive been trying this out and its quite nice once you get the hang of it
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
State was nice enough to play some off race games against me and I managed to use this a few times.
http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/plexa_vs_state.sc2replay
While I harass with prisms most of the game there are a few points where I'm employing this tactic. For instance, at the start when I pressure with colossus I warp in zealots into his main rather than to beef up my attack. Would warping in more stuff into my army have won the game? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. Nevertheless, state couldn't defend both places at once and lost a lot of SCVs.
There's also a time when he's pressuring my base and when most protoss would be warping in stuff into their army, I warp in Zealots into his main. Right decision? Again, I don't know. But I think it worked quite well.
You can judge the effectiveness for yourself.
|
have been using this a tons lately in PvZ.
The application of wrapprism is really underused.
i find it extremely powerful if you could have 1 or 2 sentries to block of the ramp on some certain map and snipe the main with zealot and kill their tech tree just like MMA killing spawning pool. The only unit that can break FF from Z is ultra and the never get it early on to held such attack. Wrap prism late game could be used as a "recall" in BW where you completely switch the battle to another side of the map after an army trade. How does that benefit you? Go look at PvP korean 4 gate prepatch and how it works.
Also i find this is a great tatic to have some sort of air switch lategame which is incredibly powerful in PvZ. Imagine after they kill you army, they have to go defends their main and when they come back, you have 10 VR 5 colossi ready...
|
I think that the main reason why it's so dominant with Terran and Zerg rather than Protoss is that Terran has the healing bonus with their drops - making the drops that much more effective due to being able to prolong the drop attack. Zerg mainly for the kamikaze bling drops. I think that it's not really as much of a "it's hard" issue with protoss as much as it is totally out of our comfort zones for the most part. Usually we all have pre-set builds and counters to our opponents builds, timings, etc. For things such as Warp Prism attacks and even Nydus, when they happen a lot of the time the "victim" is often caught completely off-guard. This is all due to the infrequency of each's use. A lot of the time it's just a "forgot it was even there" type thing, more-so than an execution difficulty type thing. I will say though that the one thing that we have in our favor is that it comes from a structure which produces 3 other key units for our armies - and without actually scouting the warp prisms, helps aid in the surprise factor ("damn, I thought he was going collo tech").
I've been trying to use warp prisms more in my play lately, however it's mostly been acting as a "roving pylon" behind my main force to be used for reinforcements rather than attacking in their base. I should start using this more often though as it can completely throw someone off their game enough to force the win in your favor - especially when used at odd timings.
|
Another reason why you should not warp in Stalkers (and also why I do not use Prisms) is because of its small radius, you need a lot of them to be effective in late-game. They can only warp in a couple of Stalkers at most. They are good for harassment and small raids, but not for reinforcing a late-game army.
For offense it may be able to add in a few more Zealots though, which I can only see you wanting in PvT, as Zealots are pretty much trash in PvZ. I always put a Pylon where my army is if I am not attacking (e.g. natural, outside of natural, etc.).
|
I'll be honest as a mass-bio terran user, this strategy really sounds like a good thing for my side of the fight. I want Protoss to be splitting up his army and let me trade armies aggressively, this was the original foundation of mass bio vs Protoss.
Now don't get me wrong, this is a different play style (namely mass gateway from the sound of it), it is not weak to Terran bio, I would have to do a lot more play testing versus this before claiming that even in passing. And against mech's infamous immobility I think has a lot of strength.
But the traditional Bio/Viking mix can adapt to deal with this as you've described (not blindly though).
|
This is really interesting... I've been wanting to incorporate more warp prism usage into my play for a while. Think I'll give this a try, though I may need to do a bit of work on my multitasking to actually pull it off effectively.
|
Wouldn't it make sense to load up a single sentry with your warp prism so you can FF the sides of the mineral line when you drop so that workers cannot stream out except through your zealots? It only takes one well placed FF on each side in every map I've tested it on to prevent workers from going through and easily gives you ~15 seconds of free hits on the workers and would make it much easier to micro the main battle while warping in at the Prism.
|
Given how cost effective Protoss is and that Zerg needs to have an overwhelmingly stronger army to generally beat a Protoss force, I declare this imba.
And we shall decide as Good People to not do this.
|
On June 21 2011 17:13 Belial88 wrote:
Given how cost effective Protoss is and that Zerg needs to have an overwhelmingly stronger army to generally beat a Protoss force, I declare this imba.
And we shall decide as Good People to not do this.
Warp Prisms aren't imba. It's just worthless supply because it's not going towards your ball of death. And since Gateway units don't have the DPS or resistance of Medivac Marines, using Warp Prisms is a coinflip because competent players can easily counter whatever comes with a couple of Roaches. The Protoss metagame is to get their ball of death as fast as possible (thus Zerg having to pressure third every game), yet this is only slowing it down.
|
Warp Prisms aren't imba. It's just worthless supply because it's not going towards your ball of death. And since Gateway units don't have the DPS or resistance of Medivac Marines, using Warp Prisms is a coinflip because competent players can easily counter whatever comes with a couple of Roaches. The Protoss metagame is to get their ball of death as fast as possible (thus Zerg having to pressure third every game), yet this is only slowing it down.
I guess you didn't watch HuK in the Dreamhack Summer tourney this year, or WhiteRa's live stream like ever. You don't need a colossus ball to beat a competent Zerg. High Templar can fill the role nicely. Drops are very effective for Protoss as well.
|
On June 18 2011 14:50 Plexa wrote:State was nice enough to play some off race games against me and I managed to use this a few times. http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/plexa_vs_state.sc2replayWhile I harass with prisms most of the game there are a few points where I'm employing this tactic. For instance, at the start when I pressure with colossus I warp in zealots into his main rather than to beef up my attack. Would warping in more stuff into my army have won the game? I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. Nevertheless, state couldn't defend both places at once and lost a lot of SCVs. There's also a time when he's pressuring my base and when most protoss would be warping in stuff into their army, I warp in Zealots into his main. Right decision? Again, I don't know. But I think it worked quite well. You can judge the effectiveness for yourself.
If only I was as good as you.
I tried this a few times, but...
I can't multitask well enough between the forcefields, army positioning, target firing of vikings etc. to put down a warp prism and warp in zealots at the same time. (._.)
i like the idea though, puts a ton of pressure on the opponent if executed well..
|
I can't multitask well enough between the forcefields, army positioning, target firing of vikings etc. to put down a warp prism and warp in zealots at the same time. (._.)
Im not great at Multitasking either, but what i found worked well was to get the Warp prism into a place that there wasnt vision of, warp in a round there before the battle, then start the battle and quickly jump over and send them to their min line.
After playing around with this last night i was really surprised at well it worked! Thanks for posting this Plexa!!
|
Aotearoa39261 Posts
hero just executed this perfectly vs yugiho on terminus attacking while warping in crap into yugiho's main. hohoho
|
On September 22 2011 14:59 Plexa wrote:hero just executed this perfectly vs yugiho on terminus attacking while warping in crap into yugiho's main. hohoho
Baby bisu so sexy
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/blitz1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Plexa/blitzk/blitz2.jpg)
