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On May 04 2011 01:07 Talin wrote:
Protoss drops are rare because for the most part, nobody feels the NEED to drop and it doesn't fit into most popular strategies today. That will change when other races force us to adapt. The same way Zergs adapted recently when they realized that bulking Roach/Hydra in a single ball and relying on Corruptors to kill Colossi is just a horrible way to play the game and no longer works against any competent Protoss, so they were forced to start Baneling bombing and Roach dropping.
i disagree
Protoss Drops are just more risky than both of the other races.
the cost in 95% times just doesn't justify the harass.
it can work on some maps i.e. Scrap Station were air distances are very close while ground is very far so you can't be punished immediatly.
Blink Harass is something that can fill that hole alot better than drops imho, and is Skill is also useful in fights.
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Well, warp prisms are extremely good late game but are pretty rare in the early-mid game unless it is part of some gimmick build (ie warp prism + 4gate on scrap station or close air metal or LT).
A big reason for this is the fact that Protoss does not have a great harass/econ damage unit until very late in the game, be they dark templars or HT with storm. Sure, zealots and stalkers are beefy, but 4 of them in a mineral line are not going to fry workers like a handful of marine; 4 of them are not going to snipe a key tech structure; a small group of them is not going to bring down a command center and then just fly away.
While slightly effective, breaking units away from the main protoss army is not as good as it is with other races; protoss simply does not have cost effective stand-alone units. Terran can drop a handful of bio from medivacs and this small group of units is extremely cost effective; the protoss cannot warp in the same $$ worth of units to deal with it; the same goes with roaches dropped in a base or mineral line.
If protoss drops t1-1.5 units in his opponent's base, they are cleaned up extremely easily by rallied units and only serve to make the protoss's main army less beefy. That's not to say it's completely useless, however.
A simple 4 zealot drop in a mineral line (that has no PF, of course) is actually pretty good as it stalls mining time and reduces the efficiency of mules, but you're absolutely going to lose the units you drop and you don't have a guarantee of being cost effective.
Where the warp prism really shines is in the late game, when you are on 3 or more bases. The addition of charge, high templar and dark templar tech make the warp prism a disgusting tool for harassment; warping a handful of zealots at the edge of a zerg's 4th/5th expansion (say he takes both the nat and main of a different position once the map is sort of split in half) along with a dt or 2 can instantly shut down the expansion and usually will kill the hatchery(ies) if the zerg is not prepared. The same goes for 2 ht storm drops behind a mineral line against t or z.
So, it's not really the fact that the robo is too busy to make warp prisms that makes the warp prism so rare in the early-mid game; it's just that protoss does not have units worth dropping until the council-templar trees is explored.
I'm thinking we might start to see immortal drops against mech, or any armor heavy composition that does not involve a lot of marines and/or stimpack, but we haven't seen this unit explored too much
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I really think people underrate Storm Drops too much, especially when used as harassment.
They are a staple of Protoss play in BW, and I think they might even be more effective in SC2. Although the total damage dealt and duration of Storms are reduced in SC2, they are reduced in a way so that the DPS of an SC2 storm is actually greater than that of a BW storm.
BW storm is 112 damage over 8 seconds = 14 DPS
SC2 storm is 80 damage over 4 seconds = 20 DPS
Consequently, it may be harder for workers to dodge storms from a Storm Drop, which makes it an extremely underused and underrated tactic IMO.
However, I do understand why some people think Warp Prisms are made of glass. On one hand, their 100/40 health/shields give them the same number of total points as the 80/60 health/shields of the BW Shuttle. On the other hand, the skies of SC2 are more dangerous than those of BW. Turrets and Vikings are extremely powerful and cost-effective anti-air, especially against the armor type of the Warp Prism. Queens and SC2 Hydras are much scarier ground-based AA than BW Hydras, even though the Corruptor pales in comparison to the Scourge. Warp-in means that Protoss can respond to drops MUCH more easily in SC2, and Blink Stalkers can abuse their mobility to snipe Warp Prisms.
Nevertheless, I think the Warp Prism is one of the most underused, underrated units in the Protoss arsenal, and I hope the popular deathball style gets figured out so that players are forced to experiment with Warp Prisms more.
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i did alot high templar drops in the beginning but then they smalls the range of a storm (it hits rly less scv and not worth a storm nearyl) and since the amulet is gone its just not worth anymore to stormdrop, you can warp in dt with pylon down ramp and observer and cargo units go the same way
at the moment i really cant see a good point in using this warp prism cause the cay unit who can makes much dmg is missed (terran have blueflame helions, [as well as stimmed marines and marauder if we exactly ^^] even can drop ghosts for nuke, the zerg have banelingsbombs and the protoss just have high templar who are to lategame and way to expensive to use it on drop it for some eco dmg in a part in the game where eco is not that importent anymore.
also the dmg output and survive is way to less
marine and marauder dropped out stimmed kill something and go away
zerg have 100 overlords in game so he can just drop his main army roach/hydra and rebuild them instant with his zerg larves
and protoss ? the units like zealots stalker etc will not kill any importent building in time not vs zerg not vs terran and if a terran stimm his units all units are dead and u cant even save your warp prisms 
protoss can use it sometimes for dark templar but if its killed its so expensive that its not worth and the speed upgrade for the warp prism not really usefull as well as there is no "huge dmg 1 shot unit"
the resolution is very easy
zerg - banelings
terran - bf helions
so what we need ? right!
protoss - REAVER xD
@ poster above: jaeh but the range it not huge enough to storm enough scv and its just to late in game since you have to wait before you have energy, most in times terran bio army can just attack your main army when 2-4 high templar are in his eco instead of the protoss army
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On May 04 2011 00:35 freetgy wrote:
and everything else is just flawed in their use
Drop Zealots? SCVs run away
Drop Stalker? is there a combo with less dps?
Drop Sentry ? even worse
Colossus? interesting but Problem Colossus lacks damage, it high dps of course but that due to splash so workers can run away.
If you think of it, what ends a drop? When your opponent sends a sufficient amount of units that your drop has no chance of cleaning up. How often is this amount of units already in place? Rarely! So if you don't have high damage per second, you have to increase the time you can whack at their economy/production. So you drop a sentry, force field their ramp and go to town on their workers that can't run and can't hide.
1 sentry and 3 stalkers should be enough to kill their initial guarding force and then you can even warp in reinforcements. In the end it's not how fast you can do your damage but how much you can do until he can chase you out again.
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On May 04 2011 01:37 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2011 00:35 freetgy wrote:
and everything else is just flawed in their use
Drop Zealots? SCVs run away
Drop Stalker? is there a combo with less dps?
Drop Sentry ? even worse
Colossus? interesting but Problem Colossus lacks damage, it high dps of course but that due to splash so workers can run away. If you think of it, what ends a drop? When your opponent sends a sufficient amount of units that your drop has no chance of cleaning up. How often is this amount of units already in place? Rarely! So if you don't have high damage per second, you have to increase the time you can whack at their economy/production. So you drop a sentry, force field their ramp and go to town on their workers that can't run and can't hide. 1 sentry and 3 stalkers should be enough to kill their initial guarding force and then you can even warp in reinforcements. In the end it's not how fast you can do your damage but how much you can do until he can chase you out again.
o_0
What is 1 sentry and 3 stalkers going to kill?? If the terran has a Maurader in his base or not, within 15 seconds his rallied units will be able to clean up that joke of a drop easily. Warp prisms don't heal, 1 sentry and 3 stalkers don't kill anything cost effectively in a terran base. Don't use drops until you have something better to harass with.
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On May 04 2011 01:07 Talin wrote:
This statement assumes that the Protoss is required to use Robotics to produce Colossi, which although a popular thing to do currently, isn't exactly a Protoss strategy axiom at all.
Warp Prism obviously has the highest synergy with Gateway units, especially high end Gateway units (Templar). This means that whenever Protoss aims to Warp Prism harass, the correct choice of main tech will almost always be Twilight. It leads to quick upgrades for the bulk of your army, and it leads to Templars which are the best damage dealers and the most efficient units to load into a Warp Prism.
Colossi and Immortals are really not compatible with this style. If you want a more mobile, heavy harassment, all-over-the-map style, Robotics should be dedicated to Observer and Warp Prism production, and the money you would normally be spending on Colossi/Immortals should go to getting a fuckton of Gateways off of 3 bases, getting upgrades + Charge, and maxing on upgraded Zealot/Stalker/HT force.
Give this man a gold star! I was thinking about the whole using up a Robo thing yesterday and came to the conclusion that actually spending just 200/100 for a building to produce Observers and Warp Prisms is fine, compared to what Zerg spends just to get fast, loadable Overlords.
Whereas in BW Shuttle+Reaver was really common, what we're (hopefully) getting in SC2 is the combining of two tech paths to work. What I do disagree is that Templars are very useful for harass. HTs don't work well with the warp-in mechanic now that they don't have Amulet - the whole point of warp-in was to get units directly into the action and for ambushes etc. If you have to wait half a minute AFTER they are warped in they are far harder and less effective. DTs, while definitely harass-based, are quite gimmicky, and the reliance on not being detected will only work up to a certain skill level, I feel. If your opponent puts up defence against it, either you have to over-invest to do anything (and then just die) or give up, and given how long Dark Shrine takes and how gas intensive it is it jars with the rest of the game plan for Protoss.
I feel that Chargelots are the most effective harassment units for Protoss at the moment. While seeming quite lategame, I feel that if you are going Adelscott or Tyler style, you can easily get fast Charge and upgrades and then spending 200/100 on a Robo (which is useful anyway for Observers etc, and can be used for a late techswitch to Colossi) and only minerals on Warp Prisms seems fine to me.
What doesn't really work for me at all is Colossus harassment, nor Warp Prism speed. If you are going Colossus + Gateway, the last thing you want to do is split your army up. You also don't want to have your Robo producing anything other than Colossi, and Colossi are so integral to your army risking them just for worker kills seems impractical. The Robo Bay should also be used for Thermal Lance, and so you aren't going to be wanting to get Warp Prism speed unless you are going Colossi, and as I said if you are going Colossi you don't want to harass unless it's ridiculously lategame, in which case where it is on the tech-tree means very little.
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote:
I think the warp-in mechanic is misunderstood atm. It's not so much a warp-my-units-in-his-base ability, it's more of a self-reinforcing ability that Warp Prism can use in a convenient nearby location to "refill" the lost units and get back to harassing.
Warping in anything while inside the opponent's base should be avoided at any cost. Warp-in mode makes the Prism very vulnerable and you're bringing in more units than you can load back up in the WP, essentially sacrificing those extra units you warped in. Protoss units are not 50 mineral worth Marines, you can't afford to warp in suicide squads.
This also makes a lot of sense to me. I don't have much more to add, but it's good stuff 
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote:
Terran drops are unmatched, I won't argue against that, but given the cost and harass efficiency of Protoss units, increasing Warp Prism capacity wouldn't help this much. DT/HT drops are much less risky and just as efficient in small numbers, and while 8 Zealots in the mineral line is certainly better than 4, it's not something that would completely change the way people feel about using WPs.
Protoss drops are rare because for the most part, nobody feels the NEED to drop and it doesn't fit into most popular strategies today. That will change when other races force us to adapt. The same way Zergs adapted recently when they realized that bulking Roach/Hydra in a single ball and relying on Corruptors to kill Colossi is just a horrible way to play the game and no longer works against any competent Protoss, so they were forced to start Baneling bombing and Roach dropping.
Protoss deathballs are an equally horrible way to play the game. It's just another of those "enjoy while it works" strategies, but eventually we will be forced to transition into playing a much more active style and then we'll need the Warp Prism no matter how useless or wrong it looks now.
I feel that Warp Prism speed should be put on Cybercore to encourage it, as otherwise you'll only see it around the same time in the game as Carriers. That is pretty much the only change I would make to it, as I feel they are pretty good already, just underused, as you said. We will have to wait to see how the metagame changes and wait for the deathball to die. I'm particularly excited about the Gateway/upgrades PvT style, but I'm just waiting for something similar to catch on it PvZ. PvP is completely volatile anyway, and this patch could change it completely.
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On May 04 2011 01:23 freetgy wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2011 01:07 Talin wrote:
Protoss drops are rare because for the most part, nobody feels the NEED to drop and it doesn't fit into most popular strategies today. That will change when other races force us to adapt. The same way Zergs adapted recently when they realized that bulking Roach/Hydra in a single ball and relying on Corruptors to kill Colossi is just a horrible way to play the game and no longer works against any competent Protoss, so they were forced to start Baneling bombing and Roach dropping.
i disagree Protoss Drops are just more risky than both of the other races. the cost in 95% times just doesn't justify the harass. it can work on some maps i.e. Scrap Station were air distances are very close while ground is very far so you can't be punished immediatly. Blink Harass is something that can fill that hole alot better than drops imho, and is Skill is also useful in fights.
That sounds similar to what the Zergs were saying about their drops. =P
Protoss drops aren't inherently more or less risky at all. It's only about having a compatible build/strategy and executing it properly. The cost is entirely justified if you pick up and leave with one or no units lost and you do it right.
Blink harass can't fill that role at all. In most cases you shouldn't get anywhere near a mineral line with Blink unless it's a gimmicky 1 base build, and the resource value of Stalkers you need to separate from your main force and risk of losing them is in most cases a lot higher than what you would send in a warp prism - 4 Stalkers are 500 minerals / 200 gas, and you can't harass anything with 4 Stalkers.
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For early game warp prism drops.
Immortals have 5 range and are slower then marines/zeals they don't "kite". You can do some pickup drop micro vs melee/ground units but all traditional AA units(marines especially w/ stim, hydra on creep, and stalkers[prisms are armored]) do exceeding well vs the low health warp prism which only has 40 shields so regen abuse is minimal. Immortals have long been known as a decent drop unit but only vs structures not workers. Immortals need +1/+2 ups before a pair can one shot zerg/terran workers. As a result immortal drops tend to very little dmg to worker lines as they low dps vs light units and are to slow to give chase if the workers are moved.
This is the same issue with stalkers, although they are able to give chase to running workers, they have very low dps vs light units and they lack the high dps vs armored that immortals have(i.e. stalkers aren't much of a structural threat).
Zealots have another issue for they actually do decent dps, but since they move slower then workers they effectiveness can be quite easily compromised by the opponent just running the workers around. Zealot drop are quite good if you can manage to "distract" an opponent enough so you hope he doesn't notice. As players get better this becomes far less useful. Including sentries in the drop can make it far more threatening but its also makes the drop far costlier. Any units you warp or bring in beyond the initial 4 will be scuicided, so the risk goes way up on the drop being actually successful(you have to inflict that much more dmg since you have guaranteed yourself losses on your side).
Note to get blink/charge and warp prism drop will push its availability significantly later in the game. Unfortunately the timing works out so that Terrans will have access vikings and/or stimmed marines, Zerg mutas or hydras, and Protoss likely will have collosus while you don't meaning that you are trying hard not to die. In typical games, this pretty much means your warp prism drop will be a scuicide run. In order to remedy this you need the warp prism speed upgrade, the time it takes to get this tends to make this a late game drop. Of course late game drop options(templar/dt) have been always quite good for Protoss. The problem is precisely that, they are late game so the overall economic benefits of harass tend to become allot more muted.
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Another reason they aren't seen as much is because they take up your robo production time, while that is not as much of a problem in the later stages of the game at the early to mid game you are trying really hard to keep those colo numbers up
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On May 04 2011 01:41 Alejandrisha wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2011 01:37 Thrombozyt wrote:On May 04 2011 00:35 freetgy wrote:
and everything else is just flawed in their use
Drop Zealots? SCVs run away
Drop Stalker? is there a combo with less dps?
Drop Sentry ? even worse
Colossus? interesting but Problem Colossus lacks damage, it high dps of course but that due to splash so workers can run away. If you think of it, what ends a drop? When your opponent sends a sufficient amount of units that your drop has no chance of cleaning up. How often is this amount of units already in place? Rarely! So if you don't have high damage per second, you have to increase the time you can whack at their economy/production. So you drop a sentry, force field their ramp and go to town on their workers that can't run and can't hide. 1 sentry and 3 stalkers should be enough to kill their initial guarding force and then you can even warp in reinforcements. In the end it's not how fast you can do your damage but how much you can do until he can chase you out again. o_0 What is 1 sentry and 3 stalkers going to kill?? If the terran has a Maurader in his base or not, within 15 seconds his rallied units will be able to clean up that joke of a drop easily. Warp prisms don't heal, 1 sentry and 3 stalkers don't kill anything cost effectively in a terran base. Don't use drops until you have something better to harass with.
You transform into warp mode and bring in one more sentry (for the next FF)and 3 more stalker/zealots. With 6 units you should handle their production and their worker quite without many problems. The key is, that you lock your opponent out of his own base, so you have the time to do the damage. A marauder drop has to do damage within 10-20 seconds. You get 15 extra seconds per force field you cast on their ramp, so while toss DPS is lower, they have the ability to create a larger time window to do that damage.
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On May 04 2011 02:01 Thrombozyt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2011 01:41 Alejandrisha wrote:On May 04 2011 01:37 Thrombozyt wrote:On May 04 2011 00:35 freetgy wrote:
and everything else is just flawed in their use
Drop Zealots? SCVs run away
Drop Stalker? is there a combo with less dps?
Drop Sentry ? even worse
Colossus? interesting but Problem Colossus lacks damage, it high dps of course but that due to splash so workers can run away. If you think of it, what ends a drop? When your opponent sends a sufficient amount of units that your drop has no chance of cleaning up. How often is this amount of units already in place? Rarely! So if you don't have high damage per second, you have to increase the time you can whack at their economy/production. So you drop a sentry, force field their ramp and go to town on their workers that can't run and can't hide. 1 sentry and 3 stalkers should be enough to kill their initial guarding force and then you can even warp in reinforcements. In the end it's not how fast you can do your damage but how much you can do until he can chase you out again. o_0 What is 1 sentry and 3 stalkers going to kill?? If the terran has a Maurader in his base or not, within 15 seconds his rallied units will be able to clean up that joke of a drop easily. Warp prisms don't heal, 1 sentry and 3 stalkers don't kill anything cost effectively in a terran base. Don't use drops until you have something better to harass with. You transform into warp mode and bring in one more sentry (for the next FF)and 3 more stalker/zealots. With 6 units you should handle their production and their worker quite without many problems. The key is, that you lock your opponent out of his own base, so you have the time to do the damage. A marauder drop has to do damage within 10-20 seconds. You get 15 extra seconds per force field you cast on their ramp, so while toss DPS is lower, they have the ability to create a larger time window to do that damage.
This whole idea that FF gives an extra 15 sec isnt true. It seems ok at first thought but lets REALLY look at it. If i come in with a WP full of units then warp in a rotation I am FULLY committed as I have warped in about 700 resources beyond the capacity of my prism. Lets say I have 1 sentry (practically no damage and needs to stay at the ramp) and 7 stalker. It takes 5 hits for a stalker to kill a worker so you kill 1 worker per attack until either ff comes up (probably 8 or 9) OR a production round comes out of the terran's production. And since all terran units are range they just have to run their workers to the ramp and then what? Im not saying you cant do damage, but at this point you are looking at a 1575 resource commitment (much of it gas) for the drop. For that much I need to basically kill all the workers, the main and a couple tech structures.
TL;DR - Anybody who thinks toss base drops outside of random gimmicks are good are just thinking that if a drop does ANY damage then it is good when this is not the case. The risk/reward equation is way off for toss on this one.
P.S. Zerg doom drops are riskier, but they are a gambit to win the game not a harass.
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There are a few reasons we don't see protoss drops, a few of which have already been outlined in this thread so far.
1) robotics production time
In BW the robotics made shuttle reaver obs. Reavers were 10x better when paired with a shuttle, so even if you weren't originally planning on dropping into his base, you still had the shuttles to allow you to (similar to medivacs are now)
Now with the colossus being as mobile as it is, it doesn't need a warp prism to make it useful.
2) Critical Mass
Protoss benefits the most from reaching their critical "deathball" level army. This works against drop play two-fold. One, the protoss who builds a warp prism is devoting less robotics time to colossus, and thus gets critical mass later. Two, Any units you remove from the deathball to go drop also then delay the critical mass as well. Protoss works a lot better in larger groups.
3) What to drop?
HT and DT and immortal are the 3 things you can drop and expect a good result. Zealots/stalkers/colossus are too weak/low dps to get anything effective done. WIth a drop your goal is to do as much damage as possible as fast as possible. With HT/DT you are splitting your tech tree and taking a LOT away from your core army to execute the drop in the mid-game, with an immortal drop it is the same, you have cut majorly into your colossus build-time, to gain a few building kills.
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Many of the points brought up here are great and a buff to the Warp Prism may actually be seen somewhere in the future. However, I would like to go over briefly what I think the real reason we see minimal to non-existent Warp Prism use. There is two reasons actually.
First of all, the professional players try new things all the time, we just don't see them open them up in tournaments. The reason for this is because in the (for the really good pros at least) hundreds of games practicing for each match and or tournament they have ruled out the unique builds as too risky for the effectiveness gained. One's desire to try a unique build when you have countless thousands of dollars on the line, and also when a build already exists, thats been proven over 1000s of games, by 100s of players.
Essentially if a player enters a tournament, unique play can get them recognized as an innovative, and creative player - but only if they win. If they try a really crazy Warp Prism focused rush and fail miserably because they dropped into a Terran who was going a 4 Rax timing with 4 Prisms and lost their entire army they will be touted as one of the worst Protoss ever. This goes with every build that exists. Sure it would be awesome to see some unique, and effective Warp Prism harassments, but the unit itself isn't really the reason we lack such play. That isn't to say new builds should not ever be tried in tournaments, but there is always going to be a higher risk factor with something that's generally untested in top-level play and that discourages many players.
Secondly, and this stems very much from what I've said above, in fact I touched on it briefly. Player confidence, next to build effectiveness, is the second biggest reason we do not see these type of builds coming out of the majority of Protoss. Since the build hasn't been tested (at least extensively in a tournament atmosphere, like 4 Gate or 2 rax expand openers have been) and its effectiveness cannot really be said confidence in the build goes extremely low.
This happens often to the point that players simply will not ever try Warp Prisms as an option in pro matches, they won't even consider them. Honestly, the only real way we will get to see these builds is simply through time, players will need time to test and gain confidence with the more unique play styles. I mean just look at BW, how long did it take for Reaver drops to become standard play? Corsair/DT? Or any other highly effective build that came rather late into the scene of the game (BW).
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On May 04 2011 02:19 Velocirapture wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2011 02:01 Thrombozyt wrote:On May 04 2011 01:41 Alejandrisha wrote:On May 04 2011 01:37 Thrombozyt wrote:On May 04 2011 00:35 freetgy wrote:
and everything else is just flawed in their use
Drop Zealots? SCVs run away
Drop Stalker? is there a combo with less dps?
Drop Sentry ? even worse
Colossus? interesting but Problem Colossus lacks damage, it high dps of course but that due to splash so workers can run away. If you think of it, what ends a drop? When your opponent sends a sufficient amount of units that your drop has no chance of cleaning up. How often is this amount of units already in place? Rarely! So if you don't have high damage per second, you have to increase the time you can whack at their economy/production. So you drop a sentry, force field their ramp and go to town on their workers that can't run and can't hide. 1 sentry and 3 stalkers should be enough to kill their initial guarding force and then you can even warp in reinforcements. In the end it's not how fast you can do your damage but how much you can do until he can chase you out again. o_0 What is 1 sentry and 3 stalkers going to kill?? If the terran has a Maurader in his base or not, within 15 seconds his rallied units will be able to clean up that joke of a drop easily. Warp prisms don't heal, 1 sentry and 3 stalkers don't kill anything cost effectively in a terran base. Don't use drops until you have something better to harass with. You transform into warp mode and bring in one more sentry (for the next FF)and 3 more stalker/zealots. With 6 units you should handle their production and their worker quite without many problems. The key is, that you lock your opponent out of his own base, so you have the time to do the damage. A marauder drop has to do damage within 10-20 seconds. You get 15 extra seconds per force field you cast on their ramp, so while toss DPS is lower, they have the ability to create a larger time window to do that damage. This whole idea that FF gives an extra 15 sec isnt true. It seems ok at first thought but lets REALLY look at it. If i come in with a WP full of units then warp in a rotation I am FULLY committed as I have warped in about 700 resources beyond the capacity of my prism. Lets say I have 1 sentry (practically no damage and needs to stay at the ramp) and 7 stalker. It takes 5 hits for a stalker to kill a worker so you kill 1 worker per attack until either ff comes up (probably 8 or 9) OR a production round comes out of the terran's production. And since all terran units are range they just have to run their workers to the ramp and then what? Im not saying you cant do damage, but at this point you are looking at a 1575 resource commitment (much of it gas) for the drop. For that much I need to basically kill all the workers, the main and a couple tech structures. TL;DR - Anybody who thinks toss base drops outside of random gimmicks are good are just thinking that if a drop does ANY damage then it is good when this is not the case. The risk/reward equation is way off for toss on this one. P.S. Zerg doom drops are riskier, but they are a gambit to win the game not a harass.
Well.. if you can constantly FF the ramp from the inside, you will most likely win the game, because what can the Terran do to stop you, once you have superiority in his base? His produced units will be killed as soon as they pop and as long as you FF the ramp, you can kill everything that won't lift.
I have lost to it already. It's really hard to scout, because it is a 3 gate robo and an expanding Terran (again the majority, because T that goes for bio needs to convert his earlier dominance into eco gain or he will crumble to a mid game push) that scouts that will fortify his from to brace for a potential immortal bust.
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Honestly it's not used because toss doesn't need to expand it's playstyle to win. They focus on the extremely limited and linear play style they can win with at the moment because it's simple..Warp prism drops could easily be as cost effective as other types of drops. Another robo facility costs 200/100 which is less than the OL speed and pickup upgrade...AND it's useful if your collosi die/you have a situation where you need the extra production for army units. Dropping HTs, DTs, chargelots maybe even with a sentry to block off the exit out of the mineral field area....it could work...it's just not necessary.
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I just want to say that a lot of the responses, primarily the negative(and passively negative) ones are passively being aggresive towards the idea of a protoss buff.
Protoss is IMO the race people love to hate. As an open minded person, I understand the production limitations medivacs and overlords put on other races and a lot of people even claim that the prism doesn't require any vespene gas. While that point remains true, they go on to claim that a starport is required, or lair tech with the gas upgrades, etc. But you need to also build a Robo which does cost gas, as well as bite into your tech path and production. It's fairly difficult to just go SG and Robo and it's especially not a favored strat till atleast mid-late game. The straight up 200 mineral cost is hard to invest early on when you're trying to produce other, far more favored units.
Food cost, it's 2 food vs the medivacs 2 food vs the overlords SUPPLY of 8 food. If the overlord dies, yes that's 8 food you no longer have, but most zerg are able to cope with this easily with mass pre-production, somewhat low cost, and with speed it's fairly easy to get away. Still, I can somewhat understand zerg's problems. However the 2 supply for just a powerfield vs 2 supply for heals (PvT) is very unfavorable IMO. especially having to be still to provide a field thus being very easily sniped. (Perhaps the Power field can linger for 3 seconds afterwards to allow units being warped in prior to it's death to not be cancelled, because you did already commit. With the 3 seconds, you get your units warped in but others can't be warped in as there's not enough time.)
Bane drops and infestors vs marine vs templar. Let's keep in mind the vespene cost for templar. Infestors can burrow so they don't exactly require a drop although for arguament sake, let's include them. Bling drops, while you have ever so slightly more time to react because they have a slightly increased travel distance from behind mineral lines, closer to cliffs (Where templar, marines, infestors prefer to be dropped fora quicker escape), the damage is instant, and it's big. 2 blings will wipe out a group of probes instantly. Where as a storm, you do haveslightly less time to react, but at the same time, you have that time to move them because of the DOT factor. It's like getting hit by 1 baneling instantly upon storm drop, to avoiding the second once you've moved them. Infestors will be able to drop a second FG almost immediantly after hte first to kill the probes as the first tick is all they need before dropping a second FG t a second or 2 later to finish teh job. Probes can't run away, big advantage. Marines, while no aoe available are able to kill extremely quick with stim + any upgrades available at the time.
There's the drop differance when it comes to harrassment. Other drops from P usually tend to be zealot drops / warp ins, the very rare collosus drop, which is also extremely expensive and very rarely worth it. The immortal drop to pick off structures, which is fairly effective, but again extremely costly.
The upgrade is IMO a bit expensive but at the same time I think if you're going to be doing drop play, you should get it teh same way T have to invest gas and Z has to invest gas in their upgrades.
I don't think lair tech is really something you can argue as far as gas and mineral consumption goes. You're not getting lair just for drops. It's like getting a SP just for medivacs, and Robo just for prisms. You will use them for other things undoubtedly just like you would lair tech.
As far as regenerating shields goes, I don't think that's a valid arguament against prism because every protoss has shields and it would just be stupid to say "oh they have shields which regenerate unlike half the hp of meds / lords". Yeah, they're protoss. It's like arguaing Zergs ability to heal buildings with Queens, or terrans ability to repair.
I think they do need somethign to make them more attractive. I do find them extremely fragile. Could be the lack of armor vs hp to other races drops. Keeping in mind they do have a regenerating shield but that doesn't do anything when they're under attack and about to die.
- I think giving them atleast 1 armor would help a lot.
- Leaving a 3 second ligering power field upon Prisms death.
- Make zealots a 1 and a half passanger. Making it possible to carry 6. Or maybe even just 5 would help.
- At the same time, reduce it's speed ever so slightly with these buffs to make you want it, and have to invest more than just production, tech path, and resources into so you have to also get the speed upgrade.
- Perhaps add a new ability to heal buildings / shields if it's hovering in Pylon mode. I think this would definately bring it back. Of course, this can be changed slightly. A very slow health regen on buildings / units. A slightly increased shield regen on units / buildings. Would make recovering from a battle easier. This would bring a whole new dynamic to Protoss.
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they are underused because protoss doesn't have a need for them yet. The options that they have explored are working out wonderfully for them atm.. I've been in games with talented people who use warp prisms, and fuck my life was it frustrating. When upgraded they are faster then fucking anything coupled with dt warp in I've literally pulled my hair out
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I think dark templar are basically the protoss drops. Why have your very important colossus production interrupted when you can force your opponent to put out fires with a high damage, permanently cloaked unit that can reach almost anywhere you'd want to drop without the need of a dropship?
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The biggest issue that I can see is the fact that warp prisms carry so damn little units. It's hard finding 8 supply worth of units that you can drop that will justify the risk of attempting to drop your opponents' base.
Gateway units are pathetically weak in very low numbers and whatever units you warp in outside of the 8 supply cap are a guaranteed loss, as you have no way to shuttle them out. Storm drops could be useful, but HTs are rarely seen now anyways after the amulet nerf. The amount of time and resources it takes to tech and research up a storm drop is much better spent just winning the game. DT drops are pretty nice, but in most cases, if you can drop DTs in your opponent's base, you probably could've just walked them in due to poor scouting and turret coverage. Colossi can only be dropped one per warp prism and they're much more effective in numbers of 2+. With just one colossus, an attentive opponent can run their workers away without taking many, if any worker deaths. Also, colossi are much more important and useful with your army. With the absence of a colossi with your army, the risk of straight up losing the game is too large, imo. Immortal drops are really only good for building sniping as they take 3 hits to kill any non-Protoss worker. Even building sniping isn't really all that worth it as it's still quite slow and by going for an immortal drop, you back up your colossus production even more.
For all the non-Protoss players, you really don't realize how crucial taking up robo time is in the midgame. After all the 5, 6 gateway timings, colossi become more and more necessary. Especially after the HT nerf, Protoss absolutely need colossi in the mid-game to deal enough aoe damage to Zerg and Terran armies. There is really no other substitute for reliable aoe dps that's extremely necessary to perform well in the mid- to late-game of all Protoss matchups. A Protoss player who has too few or no colossi because they chose to take up robo production time is often a dead Protoss player.
In BW, drops were used much more often because the reaver drop was extremely cost efficient. Even though there was a rather high element of luck when it comes to reaver drops, the possibility of extremely potent damage was a very strong threat that would lock your opponent to their base for x amount of time. The difference between reaver drops and drops for SC2 Protoss is that there simply is no drop option for the Protoss that can create such a high level of destruction that can match the reaver. A single well-placed reaver scarab can decimate an entire mineral line. There is nothing in SC2 that can match that. Possible SC2 Protoss drops will all take too long to deal significant damage to make the drop worth the risk.
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EPT
