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On June 22 2010 11:31 Turbo.Tactics wrote:Show nested quote +I hear people complaining about rally points with this, I really think people are exaggerating how hard this is. As a player who doesn't use just the "W" key for his warpgate/gateway selection setting a rally point while either transformation is going on is not hard at all, it's 1 more click, lol. It's not really about rally points. It's just the fact that if you are on Desert Oasis and have a pylon at the enemys base, the shuffle is pretty much useless, as it takes "not-warped-zealots" longer to get to the place where they are used than through warpgates. If you are defending it may be useful but then again, you are busy with other stuff when marauders try to kick your pylons/gates. If you really want to do the math: try to calculate the break even for Gateshuffle vs straight warp. Something like "if you are moving more then 70 yards with zealots you better warp!" Ah and if you are at it, you would also have to do it for every warpgate unit in the different combinations. Ah and also remember to take stalker blink into account because the faster you have them out, the faster the cooldown of blink is gone. I'll pass on that....
Uhm... the fact that the rallied GATEway unit will be in existence(1 more unit that wouldn't exist if you didn't warpgate-gateway switch) when it shouldn't completely negates the fact that they have a long travel distance. Also, the fact that rally can be set before the unit is even started also negates any further micro other than right clicking a previous zealot already on the field.
Distance really isn't much of a factor when you are producing and having finished that unit before you could even produce in the other fashion.
I'd rather have reinforcements on the way or guarding my base (PvZ, thanks poster below me)during the warpgate cooldown than not having reinforcements while my warpgate is on cooldown, wouldn't anyone in a situation where this is viable?
Regardless whether you find this worth it or not, a player who does this WILL have more units than someone doing the same thing aside from the gateway-warpgate switch. In PvP I see this being a huge deal. People are also mentioning this would only be worth it early game, I see this as so, but not as effective as late game considering early game you don't have the money or warpgates to really pump all these extra zealots unless you're specifically using this tactic in your strategy. Imagine a mid-game 2 exp with 6 warpgate and 2 robo's, you could get a ton of collusus and have fucking 6 more zealot meat shields in between WarpG cycles, have you the minerals, not to mention how effective if you had more warpgates or more emphasis on units that are gas heavy or meat-shield needy.
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This is probably the most exciting thing I've read in the SC2 forum yet, we're finally learning cool little things about the engine that hopefully will be exploited at a pro level. If we can find a few more of these type of things SC2 might just turn out to be a worthy successor to BW after all. I'm sure if we put as much time into this as we have into BW it'll turn out fantastic.
edit: In response to the above post, it'd probably actually be good to do and not reinforce with your gate-zeals in a PvZ in case of a ling backstab or something
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10387 Posts
On June 22 2010 10:05 dbddbddb wrote:
Wouldn't chrono boosting your warpgates be better? I mean in mid-late games where you have 3+ nexus up, you are bound to have excess energy on all of then. Just spam chrono boost on warpgates to make units faster. Isn't that more straight forward?
I don't think sacrificial APM needed to pull of this maneuver of converting a wg to gateway and back again is worth it in a real match unless it's for a timing push.
I'm sure it'll be no problem for people who can go 200-300 apm
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this sounds like something very bw-esque that helps out the mechanical players....I LOVE IT! this is genious, and i would love to see that little extra something that separates the pros from the noobs ^___^
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this is exactly the kind of thing crazy koreans with crazy apm are going to be doing in a couple of years as standard.
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I'm not sure what's happened the last few pages since I last read this thread, but I just felt inspired to test, and yes. It works pretty well. The attention required is also pretty minimal, as long as you keep to a few rules. Testing done on qxc's BO tester.
All it does is change your unit building keys from W-D-Click to W-D-Click-M-Z or similar (I used zealots and DT's for my testing), and then when your zealot finished you just press spacebar-click (or gateway hotkey)-G to repeat the cycle.
Yes, it's a bit impractical if you're trying to micro at the same time, but I see this being most useful on defense anyway - you'll be in your base no matter what.
A note though.
I noticed this becomes exponentially harder if you're using complex unit mixes, so that your warpgates become unsynced. I was able to manage three gateways using this method just fine while they were alternating zealot/DT, but as soon as I tried two of them producing zealot/DT and one of them was doing zealot/sentry, things became hard to manage.
Sentries shorter cooldown made it so that I'd have to 'micro' that gateway separately from the rest. The mechanics aren't that much harder, but keeping track of the different timers and remembering to change back and forth quickly becomes a pain in the ass.
I feel like I made so many mistakes using this separate gateway that my production advantage was completely negated.
Anyway, testing results:
1 Warpgate, 2 minutes: 4 DT's, 1 Zealot, 40 seconds cooldown left.
1 Alternating, 2 minutes: 4 DT's, 3 Zealots, 1 Zealot 2/3 done.
Short version: 1 extra zealot per minute per gateway.
Long version: This method of production is quite like Zerg's, it works in bursts. So similarly, one second you might be behind, then two seconds later you're ahead in unit count.
Had I continued testing 10-12 seconds longer, that last zealot would have been done, resulting in a difference of three zealots.
I could have chosen to test how long it takes to build 5 DT's and 4 Zealots instead of just testing for two minutes, but I felt that this would highlight the 'burst production' even more.
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Maybe I missed it, but was there a particular reason you used DTs in your test? What influence (if any) would other units have?
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The warpgate doesn't use unit production times. Warpgates always cool down in the same amount of time, I think its 30 seconds, so your times are incorrect.
I think you method may be faster once, but if you tried it again youd have to add the change time in twice, Im not sure though.
You sir, are wrong.
Warpgates are sexy, and you can warp units anywhere whenever, so its super cool to have a ton of warpgates ready. Not only that but they look cooler, and even the units get an auto +50 damage output for spawning in style.
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On June 22 2010 20:58 DarQraven wrote:
I'm not sure what's happened the last few pages since I last read this thread, but I just felt inspired to test, and yes. It works pretty well. The attention required is also pretty minimal, as long as you keep to a few rules. Testing done on qxc's BO tester.
All it does is change your unit building keys from W-D-Click to W-D-Click-M-Z or similar (I used zealots and DT's for my testing), and then when your zealot finished you just press spacebar-click (or gateway hotkey)-G to repeat the cycle.
Yes, it's a bit impractical if you're trying to micro at the same time, but I see this being most useful on defense anyway - you'll be in your base no matter what.
A note though.
I noticed this becomes exponentially harder if you're using complex unit mixes, so that your warpgates become unsynced. I was able to manage three gateways using this method just fine while they were alternating zealot/DT, but as soon as I tried two of them producing zealot/DT and one of them was doing zealot/sentry, things became hard to manage.
Sentries shorter cooldown made it so that I'd have to 'micro' that gateway separately from the rest. The mechanics aren't that much harder, but keeping track of the different timers and remembering to change back and forth quickly becomes a pain in the ass.
I feel like I made so many mistakes using this separate gateway that my production advantage was completely negated.
Anyway, testing results:
1 Warpgate, 2 minutes: 4 DT's, 1 Zealot, 40 seconds cooldown left.
1 Alternating, 2 minutes: 4 DT's, 3 Zealots, 1 Zealot 2/3 done.
Short version: 1 extra zealot per minute per gateway.
Long version: This method of production is quite like Zerg's, it works in bursts. So similarly, one second you might be behind, then two seconds later you're ahead in unit count.
Had I continued testing 10-12 seconds longer, that last zealot would have been done, resulting in a difference of three zealots.
I could have chosen to test how long it takes to build 5 DT's and 4 Zealots instead of just testing for two minutes, but I felt that this would highlight the 'burst production' even more.
To do a proper test, you have to measure how much time it takes for each production cycle, so your initial state should be the same as the end state, i.e. the warpgate should be ready to spawn a unit and not on cooldown or as a gateway, exactly like it was, when you started counting the time.
If you're doing the trick perfectly, you should get a DT/zeal every 46 seconds(game time), while DT cooldown is 45 seconds, so the zealot is almost for free.
Since you can't do it perfectly it will be a bit over 46 seconds, but still much faster than just using warpgates.
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if this becomes something very common among pros, i might just switch back to terran
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On June 23 2010 00:08 SiNiquity wrote:
Maybe I missed it, but was there a particular reason you used DTs in your test? What influence (if any) would other units have?
HTs and DTs have the longest build time (55 seconds). Warp Gates have a cooldown that is always 10 seconds lower than the standard build time (so, 45 seconds for those two units).
Warping in an HT or DT, you spend 45 seconds on Warp Gate cooldown, and 3+33+10=46 seconds switching to a Gateway, building a Zealot and switching back to a Warp Gate.
So, with the longest WG Cooldown unit (HT or DT), you can fit in a 'free' creation (1-second overlap) of the shortest build-time unit (Zealot). If you're trying to do it with Sentries/Stalkers, you're going to end up with a bigger overlap.
Doing any other combo isn't going to be as efficient as just alternating between HTs/DTs and Zealots, but it will still give you a benefit because you're basically giving the building something useful to do while its Warp-Gate cooldown is in effect.
The only combo that is completely useless to do is Zealot->Zealot. 23 seconds for the WG to cooldown and 46 seconds to make the second Zealot...you might as well just leave it as a Warp Gate and summon two Zealots that way (23s each = 46s total) and save yourself the trouble.
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God I hope this actually turns out to be useful enough for high level players to use. Not only will it be awesome visually to see a players gateways constantly in flux, It'll permanently rape any chance anyone could ever have of saying protoss is easy
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this is amazing! i did it in the build order tester, and it works like a charm. however i doubt many people have the skills to master this in the actual game. it takes 3 seconds from a warp gate to turn back to a gateway in which you should NOT be watching it transform. now hotkeys should be sufficient here although since each unit produces at a different time you will need extreme dicipline in knowing what gateway to change back, and what still needs to produce a unit before warping back in to a gateway. im sure that pros will eventually come to master this, but for an average player this would most likely require to much micro management, and thus hurt their production rather than increase it
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On June 22 2010 11:03 CharlieMurphy wrote:
Can you even gather enough minerals fast enough off 1 or two bases to really utilize this technique with 3-4 gates without being all in?
More like using 2 gates to produce more units and making a strong push without building 3th gate. So you have your strong attack without being all in.
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On June 23 2010 02:25 lololol wrote:
To do a proper test, you have to measure how much time it takes for each production cycle, so your initial state should be the same as the end state, i.e. the warpgate should be ready to spawn a unit and not on cooldown or as a gateway, exactly like it was, when you started counting the time.
If you're doing the trick perfectly, you should get a DT/zeal every 46 seconds(game time), while DT cooldown is 45 seconds, so the zealot is almost for free.
Since you can't do it perfectly it will be a bit over 46 seconds, but still much faster than just using warpgates.
Yeah, that's why I included the cooldown/production 'leftovers' in the results. That basically achieves what you mention. The reason I did testing like this was to figure out what this technique could mean in a game situation, what it 'felt' like. Sure, "you shave x seconds off of DT/zealot production per cycle" is probably more accurate. With the results I have now, however, I know what kind of a difference in actual units out on the field it makes. I have a concrete feel how much faster it is.
Also, I can imagine that this technique is probably, at first, going to be used as crisis management - pumping out much needed units just a bit faster to hold your defense. In that situation, the absolute numbers of a full cycle aren't too relevant, it's how fast you can have additional units that counts.
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This is awesome. Can't wait to try it when the beta comes back up and see it worked into BOs of top players. I'm sure there has got to be some way to benefit from it by being able to cut a Gateway somewhere.
One question I have though: how does chronoboost most effectively help this technique?:
It seems like chronoboost would be best used on a Stalker/Sentry being made in the Gateway after a HT/DT warp in, or on a Zealot being made in the Gateway after a Stalker/Sentry warp in. I'll go ahead and be lazy and leave that to you numbers guys in here 
This technique will really help an all-in DT rush, as you can squeeze in the extra Zealots while waiting for the DT cooldown. Same goes for mid-late game HTs, as you can do a round of HTs and pop out the Zealots.
Also, if I read everything right, assuming you start with Warpgates then you only see the time increase on the odd cycles (*WG* > GW > *WG*) if you were going strictly for Stalkers. So doing 3 or 5 cycles would definitely bolster a Stakler timing push.
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United States47024 Posts
On June 22 2010 11:03 CharlieMurphy wrote:
Can you even gather enough minerals fast enough off 1 or two bases to really utilize this technique with 3-4 gates without being all in?
I wouldn't use this for consistent production, but it does mean you can burst out an extra round of units quicker right after taking an expansion, making you less vulnerable (instead of having to wait for new gateways to finish building).
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I think people saying this is going to become totally standard are expecting a little much. It only really makes a difference if you're pumping ht/dt AND zealots. and it's an awful lot of apm too, and if your gates are chrono boosted it sees even less of an effect.
that being said i think this could be seen with some interesting all ins but i doubt itll become standard protoss macro down the line.
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Has anyone run the numbers to see how much of a benefit Chronoboost has on production? Since it effects WG cooldown GW production and both transformation cycles.
I imagine this will become extremely useful for players who are trying to tech hard without sacrificing defense, since they can spawn low gas units and spend their gas on teching while using the extra minerals on "free" zealots.
I also feel this will make 2 gating against a zerg extremely more difficult to defend since you can get a sudden burst increase in production without needing the extra gate.
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Tested it myself regarding chronoboost:
One full cycle for building 3HT + 3Zeal (begins with operational warpgate and ends with operational warpgate.
Gateshuffle : ~130 secs
Normal WG ~190 secs
ratio : 1.46
Chronoed Gateshuffle : ~100secs
Chronoed Normal WG : ~145sec
ratio 1.45
I screwed up here and there but, the ratio (Gateshuffle)/(NormalWG) seems overall unafected by chronoboosting
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EPT
