EPTWhy Protoss Drops Are Rare (Warp Prism Analysis) - Page 14
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Ocedic
United States1808 Posts
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Natengall
United States60 Posts
PvT: Early warp prisms allow protoss players to be capable of bypassing the terran walloff or bunker(s) at the natural to deal damage where the terran player would not expect it. You can time your robo with your warpgate tech and drop 4 zealots reinforced with 3 more zealots or 3 stalkers by the 7 minute mark while throwing down an expansion. This can outright win games if your terran opponent did any sort of gimmicky build where the opponent did not produce enough marines. Here's a sample clip showcasing the potential damage that can be dealt once you've mastered warp prism micro against terran (also keep an eye out for the warp prism taking over the role of blink stalker tech): + Show Spoiler + From early to mid game, warp prisms act as a pin to keep the terran from moving out across the map without also leaving units behind in his base to protect his mineralline/supply/addons. Just simply having a warp prism on the field plays a psychological effect on your opponent by forcing him to spend resources reacting to a 200 mineral unit which may not necessarily come. PvZ: Immortal drops are probably the best you can do in this matchup to pick off tech structures or even the hatchery. If you know the position of your opponent's army and have at least 4 immortals, you can load them up into 2 warp prisms with speed upgrade, and you can pick off any building in less than 8 seconds, including the lair. Warp prism all-in is pretty sick as well. Warp prism all in vs spine crawlers: + Show Spoiler + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkDK4OguGRw&feature=channel_video_title Warp prism all in vs no spine crawlers: + Show Spoiler + PvP: This matchup is byfar the best matchup to use warp prisms in the late game. If at any point your protoss opponent pushes out of his base, you can drop in his mineral line unless if at least 4 stalkers (plus 4 warped in stalks/zeals) are guarding it. Also, the key to taking down colossi is not necessarily more colossi, but the person with more zealots and better positioning of those zealots. In a typical lategame PvP battle, players tend to a-move their entire army towards the other player's army, thus the colossi will be sitting in the back, unsupported from gateway units from the other side. 2 colossi vs 2 colossi, where my colossi were sniped, but my opponent loses all gateway unit support: + Show Spoiler + 2 colossi vs 4 colossi, where I pull ahead with good spread of units plus warp prism flank: + Show Spoiler + I've been using warp prisms so often, I've found a niche for them in every matchup. Sure, you could argue that they are squishy/paperplanes/etc, but you build warp prisms on the premise that they will not get sniped down easily. This premise is established once you've used warp prisms enough. Like every other unit in the game, you need to reach a certain level of familiarity with the unit before you can pass judgement on its full potential in a game. Once you get used to warp prism's strengths and weaknesses, it's definitely worth the 200 mineral investment. Here are some more recent usage of warp prisms from my stream: http://www.justin.tv/natengall/b/284932527 | ||
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DarQraven
Netherlands553 Posts
On May 03 2011 19:37 Natengall wrote: Informative stuff That sounds good and well, and I am certainly going to try to incorporate them into my play more, but it does leave me thinking that it is very easily beaten if opponents get sufficient practice against this. For instance: the double Immortal drop you mentioned. That's 4 Immortals and 2 Prisms: 1400/400. That's like half an army's worth of resources you are flying around in paper airplanes, not to mention 420 seconds of Robo production time, so there won't be many (if any) Colossi around. Destroying his tech is obviously a huge blow, but if that means that the rest of his standing army can just overrun yours and kill you, I fail to see how actively trying to go for a drop like that pays off. If the situation presents itself (because you've been facing off against Roaches using a double robo or something) - sure, by all means. But really going for this? You'd have to go double robo at least to be able to get this drop ready in time when it still matters. That leaves you open to all other kinds of trouble. | ||
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SlipperySnake
248 Posts
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ObserverSix2One
Israel115 Posts
For a while now every single PvZ we see of IdrA contains drops and multi-prond attacks. Once protoss will have serious problems and be on the edge they'll evolve too and might find their own drop play. BTW a way to use Warp-Prism is in the late game, at the point where you just create a lot of gateways so you could reinforce all of your army at once, put a Warp-Prism at the back of the enemy's main base when a big fight starts and reinforce into the enemy's base, thus destroying his tech and hopefully his economy and spawn rate too. just a thought. | ||
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AntiGrav1ty
Germany2310 Posts
Listen to Tyler in state of the game... | ||
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ALPINA
3791 Posts
On May 03 2011 06:51 Highwinds wrote: I'm sure someone will find a point to use them but as is there is no point for protoss to do it. As Liquid Tyler said on state of the game, Protoss has a lot of strategies they could use but they don't really lose tournaments so they don't need to use anything else. Exactly. If you can win w/o doing crazy stuff then you don't need to do it. | ||
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NightySC
Norway168 Posts
Say you drop 4 zealots in a mineral line. Even with charge they still will clump up and run around weird if you tell them to attack the same probe while marines are able to focus fireand move so much easier in a base. I also feel that the great thing about zerg drops is the ability to do some HUGE drops since they already have a lot of overlords. So even though one drop from them is not the most useful thing unless they plant som beautiful banelings they have the ability to do drops with like 5-10 overlords, and well, lets face it. No protoss wil get 5-10 warp prisms :p The one good thing about the warp prism is of course the ability to warp in new units, and this can be useful on for example scrap station, but then it is, at least when I do it, a 4-5 gate all in. And if the warp prism gets sniped, which is quite easy. I'm screwed  I'm not the best player. I am in masters, but I don't see myself as a all that good player. I have tried to use warp prism, but I just find it so hard. One viking shuts it down so easily and I don't feel like I'm getting all that much out my drop as I feel my opponent playing zerg/terran will be able to get. I'm still not gonna give up the warp prism ofc since I like dropplay when I see it work. But maybe we simply have to get speed for it. It's not often you see people get warp prism speed. I can't remember the last time I saw it acctually. If you're gonna get it you need robo bay, and you really wanna pump out colossus instead of warp prisms so the upgrade does quite wasteful, and getting the robo bay just to get warp prism speed... Well I don't think anyone will do that tbh. But warp prism has yet to see its moments so it will be interesting to see when someone pulls out some awesome protoss drops in the future! | ||
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Natengall
United States60 Posts
On May 03 2011 20:42 DarQraven wrote: the double Immortal drop you mentioned. That's 4 Immortals and 2 Prisms: 1400/400. That's like half an army's worth of resources you are flying around in paper airplanes, not to mention 420 seconds of Robo production time, so there won't be many (if any) Colossi around. You make it seem like the 4 immortals serves no other purpose but the drop, but in an actual game, if your zerg opponent is roach heavy, you always have a handful of immortals out anyway. The usefulness of the 4 immortals dies down once you have a good number of colossi, so you can afford to use them to pick off buildings. Immortal dropping is all really situational and not exactly something you want to declare as your strategy during the loading screen. On May 03 2011 21:05 NightySC wrote: My feeling as a protoss when it comes to dropping is that say a medivac with 8 marines just have such a high DPS. Same with lings, but for a protoss to get the same amount of DPS we will have to drop DT's which has been done and can be usefull, but I often feel that droping 4 zealots just isn't worth it because they don't have all that great DPS. Say you drop 4 zealots in a mineral line. Even with charge they still will clump up and run around weird if you tell them to attack the same probe while marines are able to focus fireand move so much easier in a base. I also feel that the great thing about zerg drops is the ability to do some HUGE drops since they already have a lot of overlords. So even though one drop from them is not the most useful thing unless they plant som beautiful banelings they have the ability to do drops with like 5-10 overlords, and well, lets face it. No protoss wil get 5-10 warp prism Every race has its own unique drop style. Terrans can snipe anything they please with mmm drops because of the range of mm. Zerg can swarm a base with ol drops. Protoss can only deal so much damage to an opponents bases with theirs, thus their drops tend to be more of a harass-based with the intention of only to pick off a few workers, halt mining, or pick off addons/pylons. Instead of wishing that protoss drops were similar to the others races' drops in terms of dealing damage to whatever they want, you should just adapt a different mindset when dropping. Of course no one would produce 5-10 warp prisms, but one warp prism elevatoring units has the same effect. On May 03 2011 21:05 NightySC wrote: I'm not the best player. I am in masters, but I don't see myself as a all that good player. I have tried to use warp prism, but I just find it so hard. One viking shuts it down so easily and I don't feel like I'm getting all that much out my drop as I feel my opponent playing zerg/terran will be able to get. Normally against terran, I open up with a 4zealot warp prism rush. If I spot a starport, I immediately make one stalker and keep it in the prism. If you're being chased by one viking with no ground support, you can unload that stalker, and the viking will not be able to chase your warp prism, otherwise the viking would get picked off by the stalker. That's the thing with warp prisms: if you open up with warp prisms, you need to constantly adapt to the situation. | ||
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NightySC
Norway168 Posts
On May 03 2011 21:11 Natengall wrote: Normally against terran, I open up with a 4zealot warp prism rush. If I spot a starport, I immediately make one stalker and keep it in the prism. If you're being chased by one viking with no ground support, you can unload that stalker, and the viking will not be able to chase your warp prism, otherwise the viking would get picked off by the stalker. That's the thing with warp prisms: if you open up with warp prisms, you need to constantly adapt to the situation. The way I mean one viking shuts down drops is simply by being on the correct side of the warp prism. It's not used to chase, the viking simply is used to deny access into his base, and a stalker won't be able to prevent the viking to do so because of the longer range of the viking. So even though you might keep you warp prism alive you won't be able to get into his base if the viking is being positioned correct. At least thats from my experience, ofc you might be correct and keeping one stalker in the warp prism sounds like a good idea, but as long as the terran keeps his viking between the warp prism and the base you are trying to drop he should be able to deny it. | ||
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Natengall
United States60 Posts
On May 03 2011 21:19 NightySC wrote: The way I mean one viking shuts down drops is simply by being on the correct side of the warp prism. It's not used to chase, the viking simply is used to deny access into his base, and a stalker won't be able to prevent the viking to do so because of the longer range of the viking. So even though you might keep you warp prism alive you won't be able to get into his base if the viking is being positioned correct. At least thats from my experience, ofc you might be correct and keeping one stalker in the warp prism sounds like a good idea, but as long as the terran keeps his viking between the warp prism and the base you are trying to drop he should be able to deny it. Keeping the viking by your ground army will deny any further warp prism harassment. I have came across a lot of terrans who would get tricked into chasing the warp prism and ultimately lose their viking. :D | ||
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0mar
United States567 Posts
On May 03 2011 20:51 Alpina wrote: Exactly. If you can win w/o doing crazy stuff then you don't need to do it. I don't buy that. If using a warp prism was worth more than a gimmick, then Protoss players would do it every game. It's far more likely that they tried and failed to incorporate the warp prism as an effective tool. | ||
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k0pf
Germany180 Posts
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Chaosvuistje
Netherlands2581 Posts
Protoss players do not need to put themselves at risk to reap a higher reward, because they can simply beat terran and zerg players doing safe play and letting THEM come to him. To top that off, people that are being harrassed hardly can deal with doing harrass themselves while they are being harrassed. So in my opinion it boils down to protoss players being lazy to not explore all the options because the current options already are so strong. | ||
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DoubleReed
United States4130 Posts
On May 03 2011 21:46 0mar wrote: I don't buy that. If using a warp prism was worth more than a gimmick, then Protoss players would do it every game. It's far more likely that they tried and failed to incorporate the warp prism as an effective tool. What? It wasn't all that long ago that Zerg players were saying that their drops were horribly cost inefficient. Which they are. But we're using them now anyway because we realize that we have to. Seriously, many of the arguments against protoss drops were said just a few months ago for zerg drops. We use them now because we have to. When protoss players start to be unable to turtle until deathball, we will see more inventive play come out. People don't try that hard to incorporate things into their build unless it's fixing a problem their having. | ||
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Alphasquad
Austria505 Posts
loading and transporting is just the opening for their use followed by warping in units to places where pylons can hardly be placed which is most likely inside the enemie's base to be honest i dont think a change is necessary as protoss already have phoenix and dt harassment options and the strongest 200 food army | ||
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Latedi
Sweden1027 Posts
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Hister
United States89 Posts
You will also need to send a observer out first to make sure a overlord wont see your prism and to deal with any quick burrow roaches. I know this sounds retarded but it does work if you slowed down their FE I'm a High Masters player in NA. Only other times I use prisms would be to keep my HT safe from emp and to storm workers at expos never to attack someones main though. | ||
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syrupychinadian
112 Posts
So you can potentially have 2 immortals or 1 colossus as a drop. That's a lot of resources for a gamble. Neither unit is cheap enough to get an "even" harass. And if you wanted to drop gateway units, they just don't do enough burst damage to kill key buildings or workers. So drop harass is just not worth it for a protoss. Personally, I think the warp prism needs to be able to hold more units, function like a mothership (warp robo units), or pylon power needs to actually have an effect on units themselves. | ||
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lim1017
Canada1278 Posts
When I have 10+ gates 2 robos etc. Warp in 10 zealots/dt and take out an expo or keytech (zealots mineral dump). This usually results in an over reation and the opponent may pull back a large portion or their whole army. A move with your death ball and with some FF you may get a free win | ||
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