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If the AI immediately stops targeting hallucinations and hunts for "real" targets when they are revealed... and the hallucinations are on hold command... would that effectively make them a movable forcefield? IE plug holes with hallucinated Immortals and let the Melee or out-ranged but in-sight ranged units stuck behind them flip out and try to attack "real" units they can't reach until the other player?
Could you, for example, plug a ramp with hallucinated Immortals or Archons and get even massive units like collossi, thors, ultras trapped while they keep trying to reach the "real" units they see attacking the other side and doing 0 damage? They would have to target-fire the Hallucinations just to get through, and wouldn't just crush them like FFs.
You could also hallucinate before battle and leave the tissue-paper tough Sentries behind and plug holes at will.
I only play Terran, but that sounds like a LOT of fun.
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I once used hallucinated probes to tank siege tank shots at some 4vs4 game just to get some achievements.
Does Hallucinationed colossus or archon break down forcefields?
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On September 20 2011 16:41 AnxiousHippo wrote:To be honest I wish DTs could be hallucinated. Show nested quote +Pheonix
Force turrets?
I've honestly forced turrets (multiple times) after hallucinating 4 phoenix vs Terran players. It is a goal of mine to force spore crawlers as well (I always seem to attack an overlord on accident) Pheonixes attack while moving, how would you prevent them from attacking ovies?
Send your phoenixes around the map with a move command rather than using attack move and they will not attack.
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There's two good uses I'd like to add my 2c on:
The archon plug.
For 100 energy you get 60 seconds of protection from zergling runbys. This is great long term insurance for when you leave base or can't afford to be distracted. An Archon lasts about 24 "thwack-seconds" against lings, so 2 lings will kill an Archon in slightly less time than a force field takes to drop. This is plenty of time to warp in reinforcements.
The "mobile forcefield"
Hallucinated units, when spotted, are skipped if real units are in range. This means melee units will run around looking for real targets to engage. If they attack the hallucination, you win. If they are blocked and can't reach your units, it's still a win. A push with fake zealots can be particularly good at keeping marines that special 5-6 distance away which Stalkers LOVE, something that a stationary force field can't do. On a larger scale those same fake Zealots could consistently hold back marauders from your Colossus.
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Keep in mind that a melee unit surrounded by fakes has NO CHOICE but to kill the fakes! This can break up enemy forces and trap them if you clog the field(use zealots or probes), but takes ridiculous amounts of sentry energy. Probably better to force field instead. A fake wall still forces melee units to path around, and they're a bit smarter about it than with force field.
Hallucinated units still screw up a-move armies. The a-move priority is to find "anything worth shooting". If only fake units are in range, it doesn't care! A-move will not make your units travel to acquire real targets. In the high leagues this doesn't matter, since most units are always being manually moved. It still hurts a-move's ability to get good concaves, as they will concave on both fake and real targets. In lower leagues this can be even nastier than force fields.
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If a real target is within sight, but out of range, will the enemy unit target the hallucination in range or try to find a path to the real unit?
Example, a Thor with range 7 sees a Colossus at range 9, and is blocked at that distance by Hallucinated units. Does it attack the hallucinated units or run around looking for a path to the real (and presumably attacking) enemy?
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The death animation is a significant tell on whether a hallucinated unit is real or not. If you attempt to psych a player out with a hallucination just once and they notice its death animation, they will instantly be incredibly wary of whatever you show them the rest of the game.
That said, I agree with you in that players have come nowhere close to exploiting the potential benefits of hallucination.
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On September 21 2011 04:06 skatbone wrote:Show nested quote +On September 20 2011 16:41 AnxiousHippo wrote:To be honest I wish DTs could be hallucinated. Pheonix
Force turrets?
I've honestly forced turrets (multiple times) after hallucinating 4 phoenix vs Terran players. It is a goal of mine to force spore crawlers as well (I always seem to attack an overlord on accident) Pheonixes attack while moving, how would you prevent them from attacking ovies? Send your phoenixes around the map with a move command rather than using attack move and they will not attack.
That's not true, if they move in range of an overlord they will still automatically attack it.
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Your opponent can try to feed back your hallucinations. This will kill fake Sentries and High Templars but simpy damage Phoenixes.
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If a real target is within sight, but out of range, will the enemy unit target the hallucination in range or try to find a path to the real unit? From what I can test, yes. Marines will stop to shoot hallucinations, but will try to get in range of real Stalkers that open fire. If you swarm the marines with fake zealots, the marine's pathing sends them scattering as they try to close the 5-6 range gap. That means free shots for Stalkers! A large number of hallucinated Zealots can either break enemy cohesion, trapping the odd unit here or there, or wrap around and trap them all. Obviously if they FF the fake units to escape, they're gifting you free shots.
It's very difficult to place force fields behind a bio ball (without running into a million stim marines), so using hallucinations may be a more effective solution.
If the marines can path around the Zealots, the advantage isn't as good. From what I see it hurts stutter step quite a bit, since stutter step relies on kiting REAL Zealots to be effective.
Who knows? Maybe a combination of hallucinations and force field will become the norm. But hallucinated pushes (At least mass zealot) show some usable potential.
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- holding thor rushes in pvt This.
It's one of the things that can be useful some times, thors prioritise void rays over any other protoss unit (just like they prioritise mutas and brood lords vs zerg), and their dps against armored air is pathetically low with respect to their anti-ground. Add guardian shield to further weaken the missles, and that's hundred of damages that won't be dealt to your ground units.
Real void rays are even better of course, but you don't necessarily have a stargate.
Note that if a terran scans you, his units will instantly switch back to hallucinations if the effect ends. Units don't "remember" which enemies were fake.
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Just read the guide, very interesting! It's very useful to open people's eyes to tactics they wouldn't normally think about that can enhance their game.
You should add a section or at least a couple lines about how detection affects hallucinated units in battle. It's rather important when you're using them in your army to know that the AI will not attack hallucinated units that are detected until the real units nearby are dead first. Just something that I thought would help out to include 
Thanks for the great post! :D
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ive always used archons and pheonixes myself. the HT one vs terran sounds really annoying. also can hallucinated units take watchtowers?
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also can hallucinated units take watchtowers? Yes, they can. A hallucinated unit could be useful for contesting a tower, without placing good units at risk.
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Hallucination would be very used if FF and guardian shield weren't so vital in all of the matchups. I'm sorry but that is why hallucination just can't be used to this extent.
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I really think you should check your math, some of your "health values" were way off. But otherwise, good read.
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It just occured to me to use hallucination to feint builds.
Feint X gate but going blink stalker or higher tech; almost would guarantee a reaction from Zerg)
Feint two robo builds but going DT/archon
Feint (midgame) HT build (hallucinate HTs) but going mass gateway v T ( since we'd start massing up ghosts if we spot HTs)
Hallucination could be the key to carrier builds, since every race fears the Protoss deathball resulting in delaying their own push.
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research cost to 50/50 please.
imagine the awesomeness.. being able to afford hallu first + a stalker... from one gas. insane.
oh and maybe energy cost to 75, so that I dont have a sentry completed 10 seconds before I start researching hallucination.
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On September 22 2011 10:13 NoisyNinja wrote:
I really think you should check your math, some of your "health values" were way off. But otherwise, good read.
Such as?
(Number of hallucinations per cast)*(Hit points per normal unit)/(Double damage taken) = "Total Health the Hallucination has per cast"
Didn't see anything wrong with the health values when I checked it quickly.
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The only bad thing about depending on hallucinations to hold off timing pushes like 1-1-1 is that if it ever gets to be a part of the metagame, Terran players will realize that your "solid" defense is composed of many hallucinations and will proceed to 1-1-1 roflstomp you into oblivion.
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EPT
