Good day, fellow TL'ers. This is my first real contribution to the community inspired by some thoughts in the shower last night. (Don't be alarmed).
With the sudden raise in Zerg players dropping player's bases it made me think, why don't more players, specifically Protoss players (being one myself), do that more often if we all have the capability to drop? I then realized that it is because of the Warp Prism and the many deciding factors it contributes to make Protoss drop play viable or not.
This is NOT an imbalance thread, keep the discussion to the content.
The Warp Prism
1. Hit Points
The Warp Prism has the lowest hit points (shields and health combined) between all three of the transport units in the game. (Medivacs and Overlords). With 140 HP and 0 armour, compared to the Medivacs' 1 armour and 150 HP and the Overlords' 200 HP, Warp Prisms, if caught, can get picked off and destroyed faster before all cargo is unloaded or before we can get away compared to the other transport units,
2. Cost & Production Value
The Warp Prism costs 200 Minerals, not exactly cheap. Medivacs cost 100/100 and Overlords cost just 100, with the research to be able to drop costing 200/200, which is only a one time cost, so the more drops you use the more cost efficient the research becomes. However, where are these units made? Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game. Overlords from Larvae of course and are staple. However, the Warp Prism is made from the Robotics, taking away crucial time that an Immortal or Colossi could be building at. My point is that from the Protoss' perspective, making a Warp Prism even to start with is a choice that might come back and bite them later in the game.
3. Secondary Effect
The Medivac can heal the drop units, increasing the cost effectiveness of the Terran units. Overlords just provide supply, and the Warp Prism can create a power field. That allows you to of course, warp in more units than you can have in the actual Warp Prism, but in conjunction with Point 1, the Warp Prism can get picked off some of the time and your units will be cancelled. Which brings me to the next and final point.
4. Cargo Capacity
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At most, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
What can be done to encourage Protoss players to drop?
Only time will tell if Protoss players will become more comfortable with these factors and drop anyways, or if a slight buff to the Warp Prisms HP or something will give Protoss players that push to start using it more. But I see plenty of potential in Warp Prism play, and I think that some players, such as White-Ra have already given us a glimpse of that.
Thank you for reading. (:
ChroMaTe
User Points
On May 03 2011 06:50 phantaxx wrote: Another reason drops as protoss aren't as effective is because their army gets stronger as it grows, aka the deathball. Terran and zerg drop the protoss to avoid fighting the deathball head on, but protoss does not really want to have small engagements to trade low amounts of units, they just want the one big battle (in most cases).
On May 03 2011 06:52 Fuego wrote: I think they key here is it not having armour and being slow as hell. Yes there is a speed upgrade, but that will always come after Thermal Lance anyways, so it's always going to be a fairly late game option. If they had the armour/HP buff to make their slow speed viable in the mid game then we would see a lot more use from them.
On May 03 2011 06:59 rolfe wrote: i'm not sure i'd say its too fragile or too expensive or anything. i think the main problem is that the efficiency of protoss units is generally increased by them being together and in sufficient number. i think the warp prisms fine but there are other reasons its not used so much like colossus production needing to be almost constant in most match up and this likely meaning that there is sufficient air to air on the map.
also toss units are generally not that good once dropped, zealots are ok and DTs are excellent (though obviously thats quite tech intensive to have both a robo and dark shrine) but workers can be ran away from zealots quite easily and zealots alone die quite quickly to most standard units in any army composition.
i think they do ok though and can work very well in some situations. i definitely don't think they need to be changed in any way
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: The Warp Prism costs 200 Minerals, not exactly cheap. Medivacs cost 100/100 and Overlords cost just 100, with the research to be able to drop costing 200/200, which is only a one time cost, so the more drops you use the more cost efficient the research becomes. However, where are these units made? Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game. Overlords from Larvae of course and are staple. However, the Warp Prism is made from the Robotics, taking away crucial time that an Immortal or Colossi could be building at. My point is that from the Protoss' perspective, making a Warp Prism even to start with is a choice that might come back and bite them later in the game.
Here's a couple of problems with this point:
Warp Prisms are the only of those dropping units that you do not need to invest gas in.
Overlord drops without speed upgrade? Are you kidding me? Let's be realistic Z has to invest 300/300 into two very costly upgrades. Assuming that Z is on two base when they get those upgrades, that's also a lot of time that they cannot be researching Burrow or making Queens.
I don't know if you have ever played TvP before, but when you're going up against a P who is making a lot of Colossi, it is imperative that you have at least 1 reactor Starport making lots of Vikings. This seriously cuts into Terran Medivac production and makes using one to go harass with exceedingly hard to do unless they create a second reactor Starport. That costs 200 minerals 150 gas and at the very least 100 seconds. That's a lot of resources and time for a Terran to be investing just into medivacs.
So sure, P's need to cut Colossi or Immortal production to make their Warp Prisms, but so does every other race.
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At least, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
The most effective drops for T or Z usually use 2 supply units anyways. The best drops are either Hellion Drops for T (4 hellions max) or Baneling Drops for Z (4 Banes max). Each of those can deal massive damage in a matter of seconds to an unsuspecting opponent by killing entire lines of drones/scvs/probes. Of course, P has a unit that is also ridiculously good for these sorts of mineral line harass that kills off many workers very quickly.
Once again, taking time out of Colossi production is just like how a Terran takes time out of Medivac production to create Vikings. I do not believe that that is really a valid point whatsoever.
Why does your drop need to consist of Gateway units? Why not be more interesting and drop a few DTs. That could take a T or a Z forever to finally clear them out of their base. Or how about dropping two Immortals and trying to snipe Supply Depots or Add-ons?
As I was saying earlier, P can load a Templar or two into a Warp Prism and go around storming mineral lines. Sure your Templar cannot be used in a rush manner like blue hellions, but later on they could be very useful. Maybe get speed on your Prism and quickly fly in a Templar, storm, and fly away before your opponent even has time to pull their workers.
Sure those suggestions above (DTs, Immortals, Templar, maybe even Colossi) are all high tech units. But who's to say that a couple of Zealots dropped in a Terran's base right as their army moves out couldn't force them to completely come back, possibly kill some SCVs, and definitely delay some mining time?
One final point I would like to bring up as to why I think Protoss drops could be very effective were there any reason for a Protoss to harass (let's face it sitting back and macroing up that A-move death ball is so strong right now there's no reason not to just focus on that) is that Warp Prisms are the fastest of all dropping units. While I do not believe they are as good for mass drops like Overlords or Medivacs (because they do cost a lot of resources and do not have much of a secondary use), but hey having one Warp Prism could allow you to quickly transport your High Templars, keep them safe from any sort of EMP, and also allow you to quickly move in and completely destroy a mineral line. I don't know if any of you have seen a speed upgraded Warp Prism (I had played quite a while before I ever saw how fast it went) and I can say that it is ridiculous and quite surprising. For instance, when you do Baneling/Zergling in ZvP, the P has a very small window to react to your baneling drops on their mineral line or else they will possibly lose the entire game and certainly lose their probes. Now imagine that time is even less (and storms can be equally as effective and more cost efficient then baneling drops as you don't lose any units, just energy).
Like I mentioned in the above paragraph, I think it would be really interesting as a T player to see a P try to do some drop ship micro and just keep their Templar in their Warp Prisms to make EMPs almost impossible to land. Sure it would require exceedingly good micro, but when you want to storm you drop a Templar, storm, and pick the Prism back up. Until the fight, of course, you'd keep your prism well behind the Stalkers. Perhaps this would require some crazy good micro, but I think that if it were done effectively it could prove to create the Templar as being near impossible to beat with a Terran bio army as they could not be EMPed.
Protoss players just need to be more inventive with their builds (I mean let's face it even at the highest level you still have players doing 4 gates in all match-ups and they hardly ever deviate from those early game, warp gate all-ins). Granted there are some great top tier P's (White-Ra <3) who are exceedingly creative. Then you have players like Choya or CrunCher with very repetitive play and no idea what harassment is.
On May 03 2011 13:06 Datum wrote: One problem I've had is simply that the cheap units (the ones I feel the most comfortable loading up into the fragile Warp Prism to fly away) aren't very good for drops. Terrans can drop Marines and Marauders, which are both ranged units. Zergs can drop highly mobile zerglings, or hydras and roaches, which are ranged units. Protoss can drop mostly stalkers and zealots, however. I find that 4 zealots spend too long trying to squeeze through a mineral line to reach harvesters to do any significant damage. 4 stalkers aren't really effective without a zealot to tank damage, and 1 zealot and 3 stalkers won't really be able to do too much damage to a mineral line. That being said, there are other uses for drops, but I feel that overall, low-tier protoss units are not condusive to drops.
TLDR: Low-tier protoss units suck for drops (?)
On May 03 2011 13:47 oZii wrote: Im gonna with the fact that Protoss Tier 1 units are just bad for the kind of harassment you want to do that the pay-off is minimal. You have to catch them completely off guard. You can say the same about the other units harass also. When that warning sounds saying we are under attack zerglings, and stimmed marines are way more effective on the mineral line. Also you can scoop up speedlings and marines quick to retreat dropping zealots is more is just a suicide mission for those zealots.
The warp prism its self is fine and a pretty good unit.
TL&DR:
Its the units your dropping thats the problem unless your looking at mid to late game then yea you have really good ones.
On May 04 2011 10:53 ZasZ. wrote: Good analysis and good discussion.
I think you hit all the main points in the OP, except for this one:
The great thing about well-executed drops is that they can do even a moderate amount of damage to your opponent's economy/infrastructure, and then retreat with minimal losses. You see this most often with Terran, but good Zergs will do it too with their Roach/Hydra drops.
The problem then is that if a Protoss version of a drop means dropping 4 Zealots/Stalkers and then warping in units to the power field, that Warp Prism can only retreat with 4 Zealots/Stalkers, effectively stranding all of the units you warped in. This makes Protoss drops a lot riskier than their Terran/Zerg alternatives and you almost have to guarantee damage for it to be worth it, which is never solid play.
In the future I think we might see Protoss players cruising around with 2-3 empty warp prisms, finding a place to hit, warping in, and then using those warp prisms to get the units out as their opponent responds accordingly. Takes a bit more micro than a regular drop, but with the benefit that the units do not need to be produced before the Warp Prisms set out from your base, your WG's just have to be off cooldown.
Why do a round of warp-ins at your natural when you can do it behind your opponent's third? Especially when you can escape with most of said units while dealing economic/structural damage.
On May 10 2011 05:30 bardolph wrote: I think there are a number of contributing factors that make Warp Prism use rare:
1) Warp Prisms do not have a secondary function which is unrelated to dropping. Overlords provide supply and Medivacs provide healing, so players are going to be building these units even if they aren't planning to drop. A Protoss player who builds Warp Prisms is basically committing to the drop ahead of time.
2) The secondary function of the Warp Prism makes it ideal for launching a strong push, by dropping then warping in reinforcements. However, the Protoss player's ability to retreat after a drop is much lower. The Protoss player is essentially sacrificing those units in the hope that they cause enough damage to justify their cost. Terran and Zerg players can much more easily abort and retreat if a drop goes badly.
3) Protoss are generally much stronger when their units are in a big ball, rather than dispersed into small squads across the map. Harassment is a much bigger key to Terran victory than it is for Protoss. Less so for Zerg, which is why Overlord drops are much less frequent than Medivac drops. However, Zerg can benefit greatly from unit trading, so sacrificing units to a drop with the intention of macroing up a new army is a viable strategy for Zerg.
Protoss just doesn't have much to gain from performing drops.
They probably cut a lot of HP for it because it can warp in units. Similar to the nydus worm only have low health. They dont want you to be able to warp in all kinds and not kill it.
However, think the small radius you get with the warp prism should be enough. It really needs more health
All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
I tend to use warp prisms in games where I go DT since the mineral cost is relatively small, but i mostly use it as a proxy warp in rather than a dropship. In general I like building pylons instead for fast reinforcing because pylons don't get auto targeted by units (warp prisms are auto targeted by vikings, mutas, corrupters, phoenix, marines, etc) and pylons also are a little meatier than warp prisms.
I think the best use for warp prisms has to be pvz immortals, but in general, immortals only work for a short period of time in the MU and there's no time to make a warp prism. Also, I feel like I would use it more if it came from the stargate since stargates typically go unused once the opponent counters air.
I think you're thinking too hard; the reason people don't use warp prisms is that Protoss units in small numbers can't really do much, and making more than one warp prism would cut too far into robo production time. Warp-ins are really only good as a counterattack measure while theres a big battle going on in the middle of the map IMO, otherwise they get cleaned up easy.
An overlord can only carry 8 zerglings not 16. I agree with most of your points, but remember the warp prism is also the fastest of all the transports after the 100/100 speed upgrade. If anything it needs to have 1 armor like every other armored unit.
I'm almost positive it's all meta-game. Nothing changed really for zerg except they had to find a way to circumvent the death ball.
The only real relevant part in any cons to making a warp prism is that it does take up the robo building usage whereas the medivacs are almost always integral to the army anyway. Other than that, a no gas cost makes warp prisms cheaper than medivacs, especially since toss usually is just low on gas anyway, also the ability to reinforce with more than the cargo capacity is ridiculously useful.
I would have said that toss also may not have useful things to drop, but DTs, HTs, zealots, and immortals are all pretty worthy drop material.
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Accept for the fact that a Shuttle was almost always required if you wanted to use Reavers to their full potential. This isn't the case with any unit in SC2.
Transport capacity is based on unit size, not supply. 8 lings, 8 marines, 4 zealots, 2 immortals, etc. I'm pretty sure colossi and thors aren't 8 supply.
I think the main problem is that the warp prism doesn't really have a passive ability, as medivacs and overlords do. As such, your warp prism is only useful when you're paying direct attention to it.
Another reason drops as protoss aren't as effective is because their army gets stronger as it grows, aka the deathball. Terran and zerg drop the protoss to avoid fighting the deathball head on, but protoss does not really want to have small engagements to trade low amounts of units, they just want the one big battle (in most cases).
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
I need to echo this point which OP didn't touch on. Also, colossi drops are not only not as effective as you would think, but also put the toss at a much larger risk because the Colossus is very much the center of the Protoss army. The risk/reward ratio compared to reaver drops in SC1 is skewed for the worse.
I think the game just needs more time and more people like White-Ra to show just how good warp prism play can really be. Lots of players develop and use strategies from what they see the pros do. Once we start seeing top level players that people look up to like MC, NaNiwa, KiWiKaKi, and others use warp prism play, it will start to catch on a lot more and become more standard.
Speed Warp Prisms can outrun every single unit (that can hit it) except the pheonix and the muta and you can do some sick micro. I have seen white-ra get a fast robo then go prism instead of obs to scout. The issue is the mineral cost really slows down any FE build.
If you upgrade your warp prism it is the fastest of the 3 supportunits and even before upgrade the Warp prism and the medivac is still faster than an upgraded overlord. Something you also failed to consider is the fact that overlords require 2 upgrades to be useful. So the warp prism is not as useless as you make it out to be.
Considering that overlord drops cost 200/200 why can't a protoss invest in an extra robotics to focus on warp prisms?
Also, the fact that the warp prism scales with the amount of gateways you have I would say is rather awesome. I would gladly swap my amount of overlords for the chance to morph my overlords into nydus networks for free.
Not saying anything about QQ but by saying that making a warp prism takes up collosus time is equivalent to overlords taking up larva and medivacs taking up banshee BC and viking time.
Also id like to see a warp prism with the army of a toss player. just deploy it behind your army when the battle starts and get a free refresh of 10 stalkers as soon as the first 10 die, giving you a sort of 220 food push (sort of like the 300 food push from zerg).
As for larger drops the other races need to bring may more drop ships when protoss only needs 1 prism and a bunch of WGs. Drop oriented play might be cool using more gates than you can support to give stronger drops. but the down side is you cant allow all of those units to escape if you wanted to do.
They'll probably become more common on bigger maps where it's not that easy for an army to move around. They have a lot of potential versus meching terrans; but for zerg if they are ready for DT they are ready for drops unless its really big.
yeah just saw a previous post and did you guys know that the Warp Prism with speed is faster than a pheonix
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. When the time comes that protoss is consistently losing doing the current strategy they will switch it up and try to find a use for the warp prism I'm sure.
As is Overlord drops were only really used vs Terran early on with baneling drops because Z always had issues with T at release.
And now Z is having trouble vs P so we use drops and it works with quite a lot of success.
Problem with your analyzis is that you don't take alot of things in considiration. Example: Yes its true you can fit 8 marines, but not 8 zlots, but thats because zlots are better isnt it soo?
Another one is the powerfield thing. It's super good and no other dropship has this kind of unique thing, it is super.
Also Warp prism dropping ht's or warping in dt's are an extremly good harass option, which cant be compared to anything really.
Warp prism can be used in all kind of ways, it's just that protoss players dosn't use it enough. Late game it is super good imo.
My thoughts on it is Medivac -> Warp prism -> Overlord.
I think they key here is it not having armour and being slow as hell. Yes there is a speed upgrade, but that will always come after Thermal Lance anyways, so it's always going to be a fairly late game option. If they had the armour/HP buff to make their slow speed viable in the mid game then we would see a lot more use from them.
I'm messing around with a 2 immortal drop to pick off add ons on barracks at the moment, pretty fun and quirky but very difficult to pull off without speed. I'm trying to increase my micro to warp in sentries to FF the ramp while doing this but a lot of times I fail and almost lose/do lose my prism with immortals
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
Essentially this and theres no reason for protoss to drop at this point. Toss generally wins head on engagements on an army vs army basis. Terran or Zerg can't really win head on engagements vs toss so they need to use drops for harassment to gain an edge. Blink stalkers, phoenixes and lowground / high ground pylon warping fullfill the same sort of role as drops for protoss.
As the game evolves toss players may find themselves needing to work drops into their builds but atm it wouldn't really matter how cheap / buffed a warp prism got it wouldn't be seen much more than now.
Regarding point 3, part of the reason drops are effective in the first place is that they allow you to do damage and then save the units. Because the warp prism can't carry many units you can't warp in many units during a drop and keep them all alive.
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
I think that this is also relevant to warp prism use.
Absent here is discussion of relative speed. With Gravitic Drive, warp prisms have speed of 3.375, which is far faster than the Medivac's 2.5 or the Overlord with Pneumatic Carapace's 1.87. Before the upgrade, Prisms still match the Medivac with 2.5 speed.
I would also like to add that protoss units (that are likely to be dropped early in the game) are not good at killing workers, making the change of a cost efficient drop very low. On top of which, in terran and zerg air to air (which are built in more or less every game against protoss (to combat the collosus)) make it even more likely that drops will fail. What is more we don't have overlords spotting or the possibility of sensor towers.
Don't think that i think this is unbalanced however, i am very much in support of race asymmetry, which is what made SC a great game, and the play styles of the three races and been deviating more and more recently, so i like the idea that protoss is the race that one does not wish to face straight up (which in most games in the case) but needs to be forced out of position.
The advantage we do have is in late game drops however, with warp prism speed (which makes it far and away the fastest dropship), and the ability to warp in many units at once as the number of warp gates increases, i would like to see more drops be done then perhaps?
First off, thanks for taking the time to write this up. Your analysis is very accurate, but really adds nothing new to what most people already know, including the Prism's robustness, build time, opportunity costs, etc.
I don't like the disclaimer about "not a balance discussion" because I feel like if you're going to compare any aspect of any race to another, it naturally becomes a balance discussion. I suggest you change it to discourage "balance whining and QQ," since that more accurately addresses what you're trying to prevent.
Finally, since this IS a balance discussion, I would like to point out one big reason the Warp Prism isn't used that you missed. Simply put, it isn't needed. The Protoss ball becomes so strong at defending and attacking that Protoss players essentially do not need to harass to keep themselves ahead in the game, unless coming from a deficit. The assumption of course is that he/she is able to macro efficiently in the first place. On the other hand, Zergs absolutely need drops, either bling mineral line drops or roach drops, in order to play dominantly because they cannot confront the Protoss army head on. It is the same case for Terrans because they need to gain an advantage due to the main army not being as strong.
The balance part of the discussion is that currently in SC2, the macro mechanics of each race are almost EQUALLY strong, so when unhindered, all 3 can macro to 200/200 fairly quickly. There comes the problem when 200/200 armies of each race ARE NOT equal in strength. Zerg and Terrans need to do something "extra" to gain those advantages lost in total army strength.
*****Cut to the chase*****
Protoss's standard play is strong, so they don't really need for drop play to equalize the game or gain an advantage. Therefore the Warp Prism is not used. This is most likely the main reason rather than the more minor flaws, such as low health points and opportunity costs of producing at the Robo Facility.
What's important to note is that warp prisms are less expensive than medivacs. 100 gas is a fair amount to throw up, so the fact they can heal and have more health makes complete sense to me. The bigger problem is the time it takes to make at the Robo - however, note that this can be somewhat averted if the player is going for colossus tech- if the player already has a suitable amount of observers, a WP can be made within the time it takes to create the Robotics Support Bay. I've used this time most often in PvP to make a warp prism to drop harass an opponent if being contained (which is an effective strategy if properly employed).
Tyler did a sick warp-prism/immortal/warp-in unit timing attack vs Socke in NASL last night. It would've won him the game if he micro'd his immortals better, instead of letting them get picked off by the zealots.
I'd really like to see more of that kind of play. But I don't see much practicality in warp prism play besides unexpected timing attacks with them.
The typical protoss unit comps work especially well when all the units are concentrated in one spot. The other races' units are stronger in smaller engagements, relatively speaking.
I think it's because a pylon is a better alternative to a warp prism. Units aren't at risk, way cheaper, and provides supply. The only negative is that you can't exactly place one in your opponent's base, but you can put it nearby, and warp in units like that.
When you say the cost is an issue, I have trouble agreeing with you. Protoss units are all very expensive..true, but when the protoss user is going for a very gas heavy army (which is almost always) is 200 minerals for a dropship, and basically mobile pylon to warp in essentially anywhere on the map that expensive?
Otherwise I think we can relate the lack of warp prism usage to the lack of total understanding from the game so far. Right now we have Protoss with great turtling ability and great 200/200 food power, but once this style starts fading away toss will look to use other ways of getting ahead, and drops could be a huge part of that.
A little thing you could add is that for Zerg drops to work, speed has to be researched as well for overlords, which makes the tech cost 300/300 total (100/100 speed, 200/200 ventrical sacs). But that doesn't really affect your arguments. I do agree that toss could make more use of the warp prism, but as the game stands now, there's no real need for it, because Protoss army's are most effective when they're bunched up. However, I think that something like a 4 zealot drop in a mineral line could do a lot of damage to the opponents economy.
On May 03 2011 06:55 Enervate wrote: I think it's because a pylon is a better alternative to a warp prism. Units aren't at risk, way cheaper, and provides supply. The only negative is that you can't exactly place one in your opponent's base, but you can put it nearby, and warp in units like that.
This is a really good point also. What kind of units would you want to drop from a warp prism? My first reaction is dt / ht or zealots for the mineral line harass. All of those are from gateways so pylons just provide a more reliable option for the most part.
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Accept for the fact that a Shuttle was almost always required if you wanted to use Reavers to their full potential. This isn't the case with any unit in SC2.
In my opinion, what would make protoss more interesting, is make colossus really slow like the reaver, but make it do alot of damage. This way there is alot more micro and setup to battles, not just making a big ball and attack moving. They would probably have to make the colossus only ground though so that warp prisms can actually be used without vikings or corrupters being able to completely shut them down and the colossus
I want to see someone transport 2 probes and 3 sentries. drop and lay down a power field. warp in 3 more sentries, 3 cannons and a pylon and FF until the cannons warp in... or something like that! (okay so you have to cancel an expansion and save up to afford it, but still sounds fun).
i try to warp prisms when i can and the only that allows me is in mid or late game.
first priority is observer/immortal/colossus and only if these units are sufficient in number, i'd make warp prism. this happens rarely on 1robo. once i get 2nd robo, i'd pump out double colossus and only when i have sufficient number of colossus, it'll be freed up to make warp prism. this leads to prisms being used only in late game, unless i plan to use it from the beginning.
going early prism is a bit risky, i need good intel on my opponent, see if i have room to build a prism while sacrificing immortal/observer timing.
its not a problem of "just make it and use it", it just cuts too much time out of the important units that i really need depending on the situation. i do use them often, when im allowed. however i find DT harass to be more effective in late game.
i'm not sure i'd say its too fragile or too expensive or anything. i think the main problem is that the efficiency of protoss units is generally increased by them being together and in sufficient number. i think the warp prisms fine but there are other reasons its not used so much like colossus production needing to be almost constant in most match up and this likely meaning that there is sufficient air to air on the map.
also toss units are generally not that good once dropped, zealots are ok and DTs are excellent (though obviously thats quite tech intensive to have both a robo and dark shrine) but workers can be ran away from zealots quite easily and zealots alone die quite quickly to most standard units in any army composition.
i think they do ok though and can work very well in some situations. i definitely don't think they need to be changed in any way
I've been making a conscious effort to incorporate Warp Prisms into my play. However it is quite difficult. I think most protosses are content on just macroing up and keeping their armies in the deathball.
Warp Prisms fly at 3.375 and a mutalisk is 3.75 and has to decelerate to fire just to kill a medivac that's 2.50 speed? was 2.75 at one point and were hard enough to chase down should be able to dodge a lot of things ( marines with stim run at 3.375 )
you can run away from vikings quite easily with it, too
Warp prisms are not used because standard protoss play is so efficient.
If you're Protoss is not losing (and recently they started to) they will not develop new strategies. Since protoss started losing recently we may see more creative play and Protoss metagame may evolve. As zerg metagame evolved.
Terran on the other hand has still to evolve the metagame significantly since Beta, but I digress.
Warp prisms are (IMO) the best transport unit in the game. You don't even need to carry units inside, making it so if you lose the transport it is not such a big deal because it was empty to begin with. And a few zealots can wreak havoc on a mineral line, and can snipe tech structures pretty quickly.
I think that in some cases, you're misrepresenting the facts a touch. Let's go through some examples:
Point 1: Warp Prisms do have undeniably low hitpoints, I'll admit, especially given the cost. Of course, this is made up for by the fact you essentially get a portable pylon, and decent speed with the prism from the start. Medivacs are slower, and before upgrading, overlords are WAY slower. Speed can make up for health, with good micro. And all of that is before using shields to run/return.
Point 2: Depends where you put the prism itself. Just imagine it as a proxy pylon - you have to hide it somewhere your opponent isn't likely to look.
Point 3: See above. Also, Overlords giving supply can be seen as a liability - especially as you approach 200 supply. Medivacs make up for the regen capabilities of Terran Bio, especially considering the shields of Protoss.
Point 4: Supply carried by each is a poor argument. It's widely accepted that, supply for supply, Protoss has the best units. This is why the other two races have to remax to fight the 'Deathball' for example. In addition, directly after dropping, the prism can transform to allow reinforcements instantly. The drop itself is only half of the problem.
What can be done to encourage Protoss players to drop?
Simple: A shift in the metagame. When builds arise that being to threaten Protoss current capacity to turtle up to 200/200 supply and just go win the game, Protoss will begin looking at other options, Warp Prism inclusive.
I Think its the same reason that until recent events Zerg hardly used drop play. Because of the current Meta game protoss has had no reason to adapt to a different play style as there primary gameplay has been obtain death ball A-Move -> Win.
As Terran and Zerg continue to adapt to that style of play you might see protoss move out of there comfort zone and try new things ie. warp prisms.
Regarding point 3, part of the reason drops are effective in the first place is that they allow you to do damage and then save the units. Because the warp prism can't carry many units you can't warp in many units during a drop and keep them all alive.
I think this is really important as to explaining why the warp in ability is not as useful as one would at first expect during drops. For a drop to be advantageous you need to do more damage then taken and the easiest way to do that is to run your troops away before they die.That combined with the generally accepted view that a pylon built behind the battle is better than a prism makes the warp in ability disappointing. I think its biggest advantage is allowing you to not have to risk having the prism die with all of your troops in it on the way to the drop location.
There is actually hardy an excuse for a Protoss not to get a Warp Prism in longer games (3+ bases). Only vs a Muta-heavy Zerg or Phoenix-heavy Protoss you might want to consider other options. When more pro's other than White-Ra start doing this it will show up a whole lot more I am sure. On a side note, many recent replay packs of White-Ra can be found on his website.
I think the Prism is quite fine, 200 minerals is better than 100/100 imho. Protoss is already very gas-intensive so 200 minerals is actually nice. The fact it can create a powerfield is extremely powerful, White-Ra demonstrates it very often on his stream. Now I think of it, some people should try Warp Prism Cannon Rushes :D Mine 100 gas for the Robo, then take Probes off gas (or 150 including Warpgate tech). I can see it working in close air positions vs eco-greedy Zergs. The only downside of the Prims is the relatively low HP as you mentioned. I wouldn't mind a bit more shield on it.
I do think the Overlord is a better dropship though, at least in longer games (it requires 300/300 to be useful as dropship). As games are getting longer and longer, the Overlord as dropship also got a slight "buff", in a way. Zergs are finally starting to use their brains instead of whining about balance constantly and actually use these awesome dropships for baneling drops and dropping roaches at 3 spots at once. That's exactly what you have to do with units that cheap, yet powerful. I see more and more Zergs destroying Protosses with this.
One of the biggest problems with a warp prism is that toss units aren't phenomenal in such small numbers, but if you warp in more you're basically suiciding those units. If you drop 4 zealots and then warp in 4 more, you have to do at least 400 minerals of damage or else those zealots you warped in were useless. If you don't warp in more, your units just don't do enough damage fast enough when compared to blings or MM.
On May 03 2011 07:04 Jotoco wrote: Warp prisms are not used because standard protoss play is so efficient.
If you're Protoss is not losing (and recently they started to) they will not develop new strategies. Since protoss started losing recently we may see more creative play and Protoss metagame may evolve. As zerg metagame evolved.
Terran on the other hand has still to evolve the metagame significantly since Beta, but I digress.
Warp prisms are (IMO) the best transport unit in the game. You don't even need to carry units inside, making it so if you lose the transport it is not such a big deal because it was empty to begin with. And a few zealots can wreak havoc on a mineral line, and can snipe tech structures pretty quickly.
I think this hits the nail on the head. The reason zergs have been dropping is because they have found that against certain strategies, drop is the correct/only/best answer. Zerg drops are terribly inefficient most of the time honestly. Until Protoss players stop winning via turtle-into-deathball or gateway rushing style, there is no reason for them to change.
There are plenty of use for warp prisms (particularly with speed upgrade).
There is certainly pro's to the warp prism, like it's ability to warp in units. Because of this 90% of the warp prism timings are some sort of all in with warp-in in the enemy base.
There are way more cons tho: - You build medivacs and overlords even if you don't want to drop - 8 stimmed marines do way way more damage then 4zealots/stalkers (if the guy getting dropped properly responds) -200 minerals is pretty expensive and it takes time away from building the important immortals/colossi, you can't really afford them to fool around with until you properly got 3 bases running, or you need to have a timing with them. -Losing a warp prism full of stalkers/zealots is pretty big, but as far as I know terrans don't really care if their 8 marines die .
In my opinion they should make warp prisms cheaper or my other idea was: Make warp prisms build from gateways/warpgates but you can only make them once you get ur robo facility up
The problem is not the Warp Prism itself but rather the lack of a unit that is efficient in small numbers to justify the cost of the drop. Warping in a bunch of units in your opponents base is practically a suicide mission, thus making the drop a huge commitment in resources and supply count.
First of all, WhiteRa sometimes uses WPs (and not that often) because he likes to use special tactics. Not because he necessarily things it's that good.
Second, as other have said, there are just no good droppable units. DTs and HTs can be good in late game, but using a warp prism isn't even necessary in many cases.
Why is there a need to encourage drops? Drop play is one of the strongest strategies in the game, if protoss players aren't taking advantage of it that's a mistake not a problem with the dropship or the metagame.
On May 03 2011 07:12 AndAgain wrote: First of all, WhiteRa sometimes uses WPs (and not that often) because he likes to use special tactics. Not because he necessarily things it's that good.
Second, as other have said, there are just no good droppable units. DTs and HTs can be good in late game, but using a warp prism isn't even necessary in many cases.
He used Warp Prisms vs MC in the World Championships, that's not because he wanted to 'make special taktiks' I can assure you -_-
The real cost is it's built by the same building that builds collosus and immortals. You really need nonstop production of those 2, but 'toss already have to pause occasionally for observer, and this is just too much on top of that.
I do use Warp Prisms in my play though. I think they can occasionally be good if you're going a hallu build v T wherein you already have scouting with hallu so don't need obs, and can pop a warp prism instead while your bay is building. Also good for break contains etc.
One minor point is that I noticed you said the zerg overlords just provide food in the secondary effects section, but actually they can drop creep which is insanely good for drops since all of a sudden all of your units are much faster in your opponent's base, not to mention the creep preventing buildings from being built/etc
Why not power up the WP, put units inside it, depower it and drop the base while powering it up and warping in more units? I don't think the carrying capacity is that big of a deal especially lategame when the toss can, if he's gateway heavy, warp in a force big enough that it will force the opponent to reposition quite big deal of their army. I'm sure we'll see more warp prisms in the future, maybe not in every game but I feel it has its uses.
Its funny to warp prism terrans main and push the front (like T attack style) except when they overcommit to stop the drop, you can perma force field their army inside their own base while you rape the nat ^^
Protoss can use proxy pylons for minor multi pronged attacks which has the same effect as a medivac with 8 marines.
One advantage that overlords and medivacs have is that the warp prism has two modes. The first one acts just like a overlord but the second one where the warp prism acts as a pylon, protoss can reinforce a successful drop. In a sense a warp prism is a floating pylon and thus depending on the number of gateways the protoss have. A warp prism has similarities to the nydus worm and a nydus worm is more expensive than warp prism.
also note, Z not only needs the 200/200 drop research, but the 100/100 speed as well. Which takes lots of time, and dont forget, they are Z's houses, so a risk factor of being supply capped, too, and the larva cost o.O
i think warp prisms are fine, and toss are just lazy atm. with a chrono spent on 1, your not losing alot of production value, very very rarely is this going to be enough to make you lose a game. if your 1 basing maybe, but if your goign into the macro games like most do, its pretty awesome of a unit for its cost.
this is no different from b4 when zergs didnt use drops... now they are and they are having alot of success. still waiting to see baneling drops on mineral lines tho
@`ChroMaTe_ Though I respect your opinions, I do not like how you don't see other races' perspectives. From reading your thread, I can tell: 1). You are protoss 2). You don't know much about zerg 3). You don't know much about terran
Quite frankly, I think 100/100 is more expansive than 200/0 because the gas is more expansive than mineral. Warp Prism has pros and cons, just like any drop of other races But, as Zerg's perspective, getting that overlord speed and drop upgrade are big investment for us. As you can see, we cannot tech up crazy fast like terran and protoss. So we need to make a wise decision and respond accordingly to whatever you are doing. It is true we get tons of dropships once the upgrades are over, but we can't JUST get those upgrades. If we blindly get those upgrades and you happen to open up with pheonix and we don't have any unit to retaliate with, WE ARE EFFED MAN
Warp Prism play could be good if you have a distraction while you drop their mineral line or other important tech structure you want to destroy, but this also takes away from your main army composition.
You already have the Robo Fac. and Bay. If you did a colossus drop in the mineral line while pushing the terran or zerg front you could get a reasonable amount of kills and keep your colossus for later.
It would be pretty risky walking your colossus alone on the map to get picked up by the WP, and you could skip colossus range for the time if you wanted the speed upgrade for the WP. This could work with a 6 gate production, but an eventual tech switch would have to be made.
Assuming overlords have speed (which in all honesty, should be a staple when they are on lair tech), prisms are the slowest transport
On top of that.. how much damage can 4 zealots do when compared to banelings or marines?
Zealots are slower than workers and are melee - this means that if the opponent sees a zealot drop, they will run away. Vs a terran, they will be kited to death dealing no damage. Vs zerg, they may kill 2 zerglings.
DPS wise, you will not see people dropping stalkers, and it is too risky to drop a colosus. Archon drop would be the same pitfall of a zealot drop.
This leaves two viable units - dark templars and high templars. With the HT nerf, we dont see this unit as much any more. It would be viable to drop ht if they had storm ready, but the problem is that the likelihood of them spotting your templars, or even pulling SCV or drones out of the storm before they die is high.
DTs can walk to their destination just as easy as they can be dropped in most cases.
Also, the warp prism is almost certain to die if you drop on a terran (as if you are on robo tech, they should have vikings).
zerg inherantly has overlords all over the map to spot for drops (unless you have phoenixes, but at the point in the game where you have robo-tech and stargate-tech any drop from a protoss should do negligable damage. Because they will see you coming, you have lost the elemtn of surprise (which is the whole point of drops).
Protoss has 3 different tech trees. Terran and zerg tech trees are very linear which opens up these dropping units along the way anyways. If a protoss decides to open with twilight or stargate build.. they will not have robo until late game (at which point, sacrifcing $400 to kill $300 of workers does nothign because they already have 80 workers and probably eitehr want the supply freed up (or can re-supply in one production round).
On May 03 2011 07:18 -orb- wrote: One minor point is that I noticed you said the zerg overlords just provide food in the secondary effects section, but actually they can drop creep which is insanely good for drops since all of a sudden all of your units are much faster in your opponent's base, not to mention the creep preventing buildings from being built/etc
The amount of creep placed is pretty negligible, depending on the size of the drop. The creepspread isn't that widespread as you want it to be as the zerg. So the speed isn't affected that much, because there'll be buildings in the way anyway. And as a Terran/Protoss you want to deal with the units first before setting up your buildings again. So the creep isn't that much of a deal.
On May 03 2011 07:14 Fraidnot wrote: Why is there a need to encourage drops? Drop play is one of the strongest strategies in the game, if protoss players aren't taking advantage of it that's a mistake not a problem with the dropship or the metagame.
The problem with this is that there's little to no need for protoss players to change their playstyle because it's already so succesful. It looks like the way zerg are using drops now, will force a change in toss' 'rush to the deathball' mentality.
Look at AA dps. Stalkers have a much lower dps than hydras or marines another big reason, other than the health of the actual prism/ov/medevac, that prisms seem so fragile. Also, Protoss simply doesn't have any long range anti air like the thor, viking, or corruptor. All of these factors combine to make drops against protoss more viable than protoss dropping the other races. Also, because zerg and terran are always worried about colossus they are usually making sure they head towards tech to produce vikings or corruptors. This is also what makes protoss air difficult to win with, and why carriers are so rarely cost effective.
The balance part of the discussion is that currently in SC2, the macro mechanics of each race are almost EQUALLY strong, so when unhindered, all 3 can macro to 200/200 fairly quickly. There comes the problem when 200/200 armies of each race ARE NOT equal in strength. Zerg and Terrans need to do something "extra" to gain those advantages lost in total army strength.
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a 200/200 bio army + medvacs/vikings against colossus/storms/chargelots/blinkstalker is not equal in strengh? right. add some ghosts, ravens, mech/thors.
ghost tech is quick and cheap and a killer against protoss.
its pretty slow, once it gets speed upgrade the use for warp prism rises.
ive been using it with speed lately to ferry around my templars, but without speed its pretty dead(slow and fragile).
Zealot drop with fast prism is great late game, just deploy it somewhere out of sight warp in 4 zealots and pick up and drop off in enemy mineral line and fly away before they can react.
Speed is in my opinion crucial to get for the prism if your going to use it more then for some all in or 1 time use. The trick is to find the time and money to get the speed upgrade.
On May 03 2011 07:23 Roxy wrote: Assuming overlords have speed (which in all honesty, should be a staple when they are on lair tech), prisms are the slowest transport
On top of that.. how much damage can 4 zealots do when compared to banelings or marines?
Zealots are slower than workers and are melee - this means that if the opponent sees a zealot drop, they will run away. Vs a terran, they will be kited to death dealing no damage. Vs zerg, they may kill 2 zerglings.
DPS wise, you will not see people dropping stalkers, and it is too risky to drop a colosus. Archon drop would be the same pitfall of a zealot drop.
This leaves two viable units - dark templars and high templars. With the HT nerf, we dont see this unit as much any more. It would be viable to drop ht if they had storm ready, but the problem is that the likelihood of them spotting your templars, or even pulling SCV or drones out of the storm before they die is high.
DTs can walk to their destination just as easy as they can be dropped in most cases.
Also, the warp prism is almost certain to die if you drop on a terran (as if you are on robo tech, they should have vikings).
zerg inherantly has overlords all over the map to spot for drops (unless you have phoenixes, but at the point in the game where you have robo-tech and stargate-tech any drop from a protoss should do negligable damage. Because they will see you coming, you have lost the elemtn of surprise (which is the whole point of drops).
Protoss has 3 different tech trees. Terran and zerg tech trees are very linear which opens up these dropping units along the way anyways. If a protoss decides to open with twilight or stargate build.. they will not have robo until late game (at which point, sacrifcing $400 to kill $300 of workers does nothign because they already have 80 workers and probably eitehr want the supply freed up (or can re-supply in one production round).
I have to disagree with the overlord speed being a staple when you're on lairtech. Because it's still 100/100 resources, which could be spent otherwise on a muta or 4 roaches (if you only count the gas ofcourse). You can use the WP with DT's to circumvent detection. And you're just plain wrong with the assumption that zerg drops are along the tech tree anyway. Overlord drops is a pretty heavy investment for zerg. About zealot drops, if the workers run away, this means that they've just missed mining time, making your harass succesful, it's a wrong assumption that whenever you drop that you have to kill workers for it to be succesful, using a WP mineral line harass in conjunction with aggression at the front is one way to go for example.
everybody should be able to use every aspect of game that is good gaming...
i think they should change cost of warp prisma... i think it should be 150 minerals... and maby i dont know how much sec you need to build em but that also shoud be nerfed...
drops and positioning made game to be interesting to whatch ... so if everybody use it (zerg terran ) whay not protoss two...
i agree that toss do now wery good but with or without drops ... but that show that they need to be nerfed in some way..dethball is brute strenght...and sc is game thet plenty of staf shouldt be based on brute strenght there should be more versitality...in gameplay...
On May 03 2011 07:24 Reborn8u wrote: Look at AA dps. Stalkers have a much lower dps than hydras or marines another big reason, other than the health of the actual prism/ov/medevac, that prisms seem so fragile. Also, Protoss simply doesn't have any long range anti air like the thor, viking, or corruptor. All of these factors combine to make drops against protoss more viable than protoss dropping the other races. Also, because zerg and terran are always worried about colossus they are usually making sure they head towards tech to produce vikings or corruptors. This is also what makes protoss air difficult to win with, and why carriers are so rarely cost effective.
This is a good point, actually, and a big reason why they're underused. Stalkers don't down aircraft nearly as quickly as Hydras or Marines, and Vikings/Mutas/Corruptors are really good at hunting down and killing them.
Another reason they're underused is that you just don't get them in quantity because of where they are on the tech tree. As a Zerg, you will ALWAYS have overlords around that you can load up. As a Terran, you want medivacs to heal your army. As Protoss, you only need a probe with your army to provide the extra warp-in reinforcements that otherwise could only be provided by a warp prism. And there isn't really a point in getting more of them than the 1 you want to drop with, as that is cutting into your Colossus build time.
I found it strange that you completly neglected the fact that warp prisms can warp in units in your anaylsis. it cost 200 min. Thats no gas. If you build and extra robo just for warp prisms then they are cheaper than drop ships. Not only that you can continue to warp in units. to reienforce. Whenever I face warpprisms they are used to warp in units (usually) dts in my base and the warp prism which arrived empty. leaves with the units they warped in. It not underpowered just underused. It`s capabilities far exceed the drops of the other races.
protoss have other means of getting over cliffs such as warp in, blink stalkers, colossus. investing in drops while all these other options are present is a waste of money
however storm drop harass seems to be very powerful and underused, basically its a better version of baneling drop and if used correcty would leave virtually no signs for the opponent to react to until the mineral line is dead
On May 03 2011 07:32 Ryrmidon wrote: I found it strange that you completly neglected the fact that warp prisms can warp in units in your anaylsis. it cost 200 min. Thats no gas. If you build and extra robo just for warp prisms then they are cheaper than drop ships. Not only that you can continue to warp in units. to reienforce. Whenever I face warpprisms they are used to warp in units (usually) dts in my base and the warp prism which arrived empty. leaves with the units they warped in. It not underpowered just underused. It`s capabilities far exceed the drops of the other races.
If you have to build an extra robo for the warp prisms, then you're going to have to not build something else, unless you are very late game.
Going with an empty warp prism and then warping in 4 units and escaping isn't really an advantage. If anything, that works pretty much the same as all other drops.
Really, warping in more units than the warp prism can carry isn't that great, since you end up giving free kills.
I can see mass warp-in with WP being incredibly useful against immobile armies, though.
Question: Do buildings that act as a requirement (ex: Robotics Bay for Colossus) still fulfill the requirement if they are unpowered?
If so, you could start building say, a DT Shrine or some other secret tech in the corner of the map immediately with Warp Prism power, instead of waiting to use a pylon down there. If not, of course you could always start building a pylon at the same time as the tech building, but still just a thought.
I do think that if Warp Prisms were either faster, or had a slightly higher cargo capacity, they would be used more, especially with Zealots. Thinking back to BW, the only units that were ever practically in a Shuttle, were DTs, Zealots (for Zealot bombs), and Reavers. Reavers are gone, and DT drops are not as neccessary because of Warp-ins, but I don't see why more players don't do Zealots bombs against Terran siege lines. Granted Terrans go Mech against Protoss much more rarely, and if they are going Mech, the drop ship can be easily taken out by Thors, Vikings, or Marines with quick reactions.
Also, I think that while the WP is not as effective as the other drop ships are in small drops, in late-game when Protoss has 20+ Warp Gates, WP doom drops or 'doom warp-ins' may be very effective, after losing a large army, the Protoss could mass warp-in the opponents base instead of warping in back at home.
Well one thing to note is that Warp Prisms with speed are ridiculously fast. For 100/100, you get drops that fly almost as fast as Mutalisks (3.38 vs 3.75). Medivacs and Slow Prisms are 2.5, for reference. So while you do get the least health and utility out of them, with speed they are the most mobile and they don't cost as much as Medivacs and are much faster than Overlords. I think that storm drops and DT drops are relatively unexplored tools in the Protoss arsenal, but that's a late late late game thing.
On the other hand, we have a speed upgrade that puts us on par with carriers.
On a rather separate note, if I am in a battle as a protoss, my first and foremost goal is to do a few things.
1. Protect my collossi. 2. Protect my collossi.
The current game plan of most protoss has been to protect the power units. It is much harder to replace robo or stargate units so a strong emphasis is creating that meat shield to allow my big units to fight another fight. As a general rule, most drops are most effective as a dual pronged assault. Whether dropping in two places at once or dropping and engaging the main army, the effectiveness of a drop is useless if the opponent knows its coming, or while their army is close to the drop point. If I am in an engagement or preparing for an engagement, pertaining to my goals, I would prefer to warp in my units close to the "deathball." It got that name for a reason. You don't see a protoss with part of his units in one area and a small group somewhere else. The warp prism itself is fine. The mentality of protoss currently is my best army is better than your best army, and a warp prism diverts food away from that goal.
On May 03 2011 07:40 mikyaJ wrote: Question: Do buildings that act as a requirement (ex: Robotics Bay for Colossus) still fulfill the requirement if they are unpowered?
The balance part of the discussion is that currently in SC2, the macro mechanics of each race are almost EQUALLY strong, so when unhindered, all 3 can macro to 200/200 fairly quickly. There comes the problem when 200/200 armies of each race ARE NOT equal in strength. Zerg and Terrans need to do something "extra" to gain those advantages lost in total army strength.
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a 200/200 bio army + medvacs/vikings against colossus/storms/chargelots/blinkstalker is not equal in strengh? right. add some ghosts, ravens, mech/thors.
ghost tech is quick and cheap and a killer against protoss.
zerg has it way harder, i agree in this point.
The trouble is, if u branch off in tech those units are going to be underdeveloped in terms of upgrades. Toss upgrades effect EVERY ground unit. T needs to spend twice as much on upgrades vs Toss, maybe more if you upgrade vikings as well. You should see how fast 0/0 thors die to a 3/3 toss army
Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
I think the reason that a warp prisms are so weak, is because you can warp in units as well. With an overlord or medivac, you can't add more units to your drop.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
Of course that would mean that you have a robo bay not producing anything for a while or two robos making two warp prisms leaving you vulnerable while they are not making collossus. And you'd have to have your tech tree up to HT including twilight council and HT archives, then you'd have to have storm upgraded for HT to be useful then you'd have to have them up long enough because the amulet is gone. So this means this option is only available late game and while the force is formidable, the late game army of any opponent will be up to the task.... Crippling the death ball of 8 zealots and 4 - 6 stalkers...
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
and this isnt true for the pother races? lol. everybody takes a risk when dropping
1. Hit Points Different races have different units - you are correct; if they were all made the same, the game would be pretty ridiculous. The warp prism can WARP IN units - an added benefit that is balanced with it's fragility. With the upgrade it becomes faster than the medivac and an overlord with speed; again different units have different features - comparing them across races is redundant.
2. Cost & Production Value I cannot imagine the terrible amount of threads that appear when warp prisms cost gas as well; especially being Protoss, having a mineral sink isn't such a terrible idea. Being able to produce something that doesn't cost gas is pretty amazing for Protoss so i would argue that 200/0 is better than 100/100 - but again, comparing units across races is very dangerous.
However, the Warp Prism is made from the Robotics, taking away crucial time that an Immortal or Colossi could be building at. My point is that from the Protoss' perspective, making a Warp Prism even to start with is a choice that might come back and bite them later in the game.
This entire game is based upon decision making; if i make a round of medivacs, or a round of drones and my viking or army count is off, i will lose. It is an RTS, the S stands for strategy. I understand your precious robo build time is important, but as the game progressed, drop a second robo? If you are going down that tech path, have an extra production facility? The "opportunity cost" argument applies equally to zerg with every round of larva.
4. Cargo Capacity If you don't have the micro to shift queue commands, or drop, power field and warp in before the prism goes down - you shouldn't be using it or you are dropping in a seriously silly spot. Medivacs go down pretty quick as well, but if you drop in a strategic location it can be deadly. I agree, warp prisms are fragile, but that is an element of using that unit. It simply requires more control, which i believe is a good thing as it raises the skill ceiling of the game.
I don't think the warp prism's strengths or weaknessess have any effect at all on whether a Toss player drops. Most Toss players wouldn't drop if you gave them a 1khp prism, and the dropping sort would probably still do it if it had 100hp. The reasons for not dropping have been mentioned - Protoss units function better close together, and a lack of (pre latelategame) units to drop.
On May 03 2011 07:42 MonsieurGrimm wrote: Well one thing to note is that Warp Prisms with speed are ridiculously fast. For 100/100, you get drops that fly almost as fast as Mutalisks (3.38 vs 3.75). Medivacs and Slow Prisms are 2.5, for reference. So while you do get the least health and utility out of them, with speed they are the most mobile and they don't cost as much as Medivacs and are much faster than Overlords. I think that storm drops and DT drops are relatively unexplored tools in the Protoss arsenal, but that's a late late late game thing.
On the other hand, we have a speed upgrade that puts us on par with carriers.
You do need a robotics bay as well, though. So you'll only be getting the upgrade if you're going the colossus tech path (which admittedly is very often), and then only after researching the extended thermal lance upgrade.
In my experience, drops have been useful only in the very late game. Late game chargelot drops (possibly with a lot of warpgates for warp-in) are really good against zerg; you can take out a hatch/mineral line very quickly and the zerg is forced to pull a lot of units to defend. I agree that storm drops are somewhat underused - they are very powerful, if quite expensive! 8 marines are about as deadly to a worker line as 2 HTs..
I don't understand why the OP hasn't mentioned the #1 reason why protoss doesn't drop as much: warp gates?
All a P player has to do is build a forward pylon and they can have a small harassing force on demand. We see this constantly and since this is used for backdooring, it seriously eats into the usefulness of warp prisms.
Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it. Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it.
Okay so with 6 stalkers warped in behind the zealots best case scenario you get all your stalkers out and two zealots. Meaning you lose 600 minerals worth of units. I would be very impressed to see someone do that much damage with a drop before the opposing player crushes the drop. A drop cannot compete with an actual army and Protoss units are too expensive to just throw away. You need to be able to retreat or do very fast and heavy damage while sacrificing your units.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
and this isnt true for the pother races? lol. everybody takes a risk when dropping
No, its not. At the most basic level, other races have more options in terms of army composition where a single unit is not 2+ food by default - missing 8 marines is a hell of a lot better than missing 8 zealots. Beyond that, the nature of the cheap protoss units (ie zealots) means that they become exponentially more useful as you have more of them, because they soak up damage for longer and die slower as your damage units kill the other army.
This is before even considering things like sentries, which is kinda silly because drops based around choke FFs are probably the only drops that could really be as effective against T/Z as T drops are against P.
Both Zerg and Terran have unit compositions that work best when they're split apart, forcing the opponent to split as well. Those aren't their only options, but they are options. There is no similar option for P, except maybe Phoenix/DT based play.
Most protoss players are arguing they still want their colossus with warp prism harass. That tech path just doesn't coincide with a good ninja harass based force. HT with storm can ruin mineral lines, 1 to 2 dark templar can wreck tech structures (tech labs researching stim, etc) Chargelots with any sort of armor upgraded can tank a ton of damage and force terran or zerg back in their base.
If a terran mass bunkers at his front but has a ledge that you can pop into his main with, you can circumvent any bunker and get straight into production facilities in his base. The major problem is that most protoss users don't want to give up that extra build time on obs or colossus or even think about researching the speed upgrade which would make this harass a ton more hectic for the defending player.
One could make an argument that warpprisms early to midgame puts protoss at a major disadvantage, but the viability for lategame harass could buy you time to build a better deathball in a losing situation.
You have to take in count that Warp prims with their speed upgrade at the Robo Bay ( that everyone forget with the Obs speed ) become amazingly fast. I don't have the number but something like Muta speed. Where Overlord are slower than Medivac and Medivac are 2.5 which is not bad.
On May 03 2011 08:12 Demonace34 wrote: One could make an argument that warpprisms early to midgame puts protoss at a major disadvantage, but the viability for lategame harass could buy you time to build a better deathball in a losing situation.
I don't understand how you see a lategame threat buying players time in the mid-game - the obvious reaction to a lategame threat is to end the game before the threat is realized, which is precisely what fast prism play would have trouble with.
On May 03 2011 08:03 Yaotzin wrote: I don't think the warp prism's strengths or weaknessess have any effect at all on whether a Toss player drops. Most Toss players wouldn't drop if you gave them a 1khp prism, and the dropping sort would probably still do it if it had 100hp. The reasons for not dropping have been mentioned - Protoss units function better close together, and a lack of (pre latelategame) units to drop.
Quoting for emphasis. Protoss design doesn't really lend itself to small ground-based harassment in general, be it through drops or warp-ins. Zealots only really become a decently droppable unit with Charge (and even then are inferior to hydras or bio), DTs can be dropped, but don't need to most of the time, and Storm drops have become a lot riskier with the Amulet removal.
So yeah, they're not that good, and there's no reason to develop them with the way Protoss currently plays.
you're kind of missing the point, which is: what do you actually put in the thing? 140 vs. 150 hp hardly matters compared to the relative effectiveness of baneling/roach/mm/templar
zeal/stalker drops just seem awful - you'll be lucky to kill 3 workers before they pull, as opposed to a lot more (for similar risk) from other T/Z drops
On May 03 2011 06:50 Existor wrote: Plus, you can place any structure anywhere and then place pylon. So you will build pylon and gate/photon at same time
Zomg i'm so going to try doing mid/lategame cannon pushes with warp prisms now... How fast do you think 2 speed prisms plus 2 probes can warp in 2 cannons at each opponent's natural in a team game?
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
Everyone faces this problem when dropping. Fortunately for you, a colossus's 9 range and FFs make defending a position possible with less units than your opponent.
It's a balance design. Protoss drops aren't meant to be as effective as terran drops. It would be pretty unfair if they were considering toss already has the warp gates method of mobility. I mean its obvious this is the case. Remember how fast medivacs used to be? And the fact that they are pretty much a must in any non-pure mech terran army makes it pretty clear to me that blizzard always intended terrans to drop more.
Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it. Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it.
Okay so with 6 stalkers warped in behind the zealots best case scenario you get all your stalkers out and two zealots. Meaning you lose 600 minerals worth of units. I would be very impressed to see someone do that much damage with a drop before the opposing player crushes the drop. A drop cannot compete with an actual army and Protoss units are too expensive to just throw away. You need to be able to retreat or do very fast and heavy damage while sacrificing your units.
Depending on where you drop, you can pick up the zealots and blink your stalkers out of the base. Or you can include a HT or two in the drop and potentially do a lot of extra damage to their army/probe line.
Obviously there are risks involved but don't dismiss an entire strategy just because of some theoretical disadvantage.
You have to factor in also that a damaged warp prism will never gain it core health back. Medivacs can be repaired and overlords are plentiful but when my warp prism is brought down to 20 HP +shields I'm warry to continue using it for drops. Overlords are mandatory and the ventral sacs upgrade has a low opportunity cost. Medivacs have a more desirable alternate function (in many cases a forward pylon can replace a warp prism.).
ive once tried to counter the collosball in pvp with a warp prism immortal drop which of course failed coz of the low hp of the warpprism^^
now that the templars have been nerfed (templar storm drop was incredibly strong in lategame) I think the warp prism buff would be a good idea. (yesyesyes i know toss imba ...blizz shouldnt buff them even more^^ but possibly along with a colossus nerf )
I personally could imagine some kind of shield which makes the warpprism invulnerable or untargetable for 3-4 seconds with a high cool down. This would make things like immortaldrops more viable. I could even be a way to counter colossus in pvp. This might sound imbalanced but i dont really if it is. Otherwise mb just make the shield absorb the dmg for some seconds, but the warpprism takes all the dmg after the effect runs out. Sry for my english^^
Protoss drops don't have to be as good as the other race drops to still be worth doing. They can still provide the psychological effect of being afraid of drops to the opponent.
Protoss do, however, lack a unit that can be dropped to do any sort of significant damage, unlike the hydralisk for Zerg, or the marauder and the marine for Terran.
That said, I will add one point to you, and that is that while a Protoss can warp in more units than the warp prism can carry, that is effectively throwing away those units as there is no way to get them out again.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
Everyone faces this problem when dropping. Fortunately for you, a colossus's 9 range and FFs make defending a position possible with less units than your opponent.
Defenders advantage alone makes that possible, which doesn't deal with the fact that Protoss, more than Terran or Zerg, needs a single deathball to come out on top in engagements before Storm, and pretty much nobody has disagreed that storm drops are probably much more effective than the amount of use they've seen so far suggests.
Whitera's pretty much my hero as a protoss so I've been doing warp prism 3 zealot 1 stalker drops as my norm against terrans in some spawn locations. Warp prisms can be really powerful, but they'll never be as good as the other drop ships unless they become more durable. The other thing is, the units you drop cant do any real damage fast enough. Only DTs can do considerable damage, the other drop options are there to keep terran at home as well as delay some mining time. Terran and Zerg drops can do real damage very quick, though terran obviously to the greatest extent.
I think a big part of the lack of drop play is, unlike terran and zerg, protoss cannot afford to lose small chunks of its army here and there. The units are too expensive, can be quite hard to replace, and a protoss is generally on less production capacity (bio builds faster even if the total buildings is comparable) than the other two races unless they have a really solid base lead.
Drops are really effective when you have the upgrade and use 2-3 ships if the opponent's main army isn't massed nearby to deny the drop/warp. Dropping colossus is really clunky with the delay in attack and positioning of the colossus and how you drop it so it's facing correctly. With a good amount of practice it could be easier than at first. Shuttle can only carry one also so you need more ships for it to be really effective. Another problem is that in T or Z matchups the opponent will have air units that could deny or even blink stalkers in mirror. It's risky but rewarding with how you use it with the amount you invest when you could ball and 1a to victory.
What are people talking about with regards to the "death ball" thing that protoss have? Chargelots maul workers and any small amount of MM. You can also reinforce with new warpins therefore creating a mini deathball.
You can say this is a mid-end game thing, but it's the exact same with terran and more so zerg. Terran I can go for an insanely fast drop, but it won't be safe either, and I don't want that fast of a drop sometimes. I want to have a force outside and in so I can poke and prod and break them. This is much more that the protoss metagame hasn't evolved imo, and chooses not to. White Ra uses them insanely well.
Ive been trying to use more warp prisms in my play, if Im transitioning to colossi quickly (for example in PvP) as the robo facility finishes and immediately start the robo bay, you can get out an observer and warp prism before the bay finishes, meaning colossi production isnt hindered too much, although gateway production would need to be pretty much stopped depending on the economical situation
They can be sort of decent in PvP if the opponent is on 2+ bases, so long as they dont go blink or stargate. If It becomes the classic colossi vs colossi battle it can be pretty effective dropping the mineral line, 4 zealots (or 8 if you do a warp in as well) can WRECK a mineral line so fast or very quickly take out a tech structure. You need a hefty amount of units to effectively deal with 8 zealots in the base targetting your tech, at which point you strike the front
I watch whiteras stream as much as possible and I love his use of it with HTs, protecting from emp/going to storm mineral lines. Warp prisms ironically massively favour mass gateway styles sort of like adelscotts, and since most games youll get a robo at some point later on for observers and maybe a big shift to 2 or 3 robo colossi in the late game, warp prisms should be added in more and more if the mechanics of the player are there
Also, with the mass gate style, typically you get double forges nowadays. I assume the shield upgrade affects the warp prism, but does the ground or air armour affect it also?
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
Others have highlighted this post, but it sums it up perfectly. Hit points and cost can be over-come if there is an over-riding use for the warp-prism. And with hitpoints, there is also the gravitic drive, which arguably is better than more hitpoints. But what exactly are you going to drop? 4 zealots? Maybe you're best bet. 2-4 stalkers? (Haven't tried dropping these in awhile) A couple immortals? DPS is such that they'd get sniped too fast and can't clean out worker lines. Collosi? Better using their mobility and strength on the ground that making them more vulnerable and defenseless in a warp prism. Maybe DT's, but even they don't seem quite as useful (late tech) as their BW conterparts.
Storm drops used to be amazing in BW, but because of smart casting the power of storms have been decreased. I remember in beta needing to drop 3-4 storms to clean out an un-microed scv line... Last time I ever tried storm dropping. Even getting 1 storm on a mineral line would be killer and getting 2 would wipe out an un-microed worker line. It's just not worth losing 1-2 templars with a warprism to severely damage, but not kill workers that'll either recharge shields or heal overtime.
Then there were reavers that if they got a shot off, would destroy 1/3 to half a worker line. Very much worth micro-ing speed shuttles. Even 4 speed zealots could do a decent amount of damage.
I tend to use drops when I open DT expand. Whenever I DT expand I grab a robo as soon as my nexus goes up. I find that warp prisms sync so well with DTs.
Or I might just be too low level to the point that stuff like this works.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
Everyone faces this problem when dropping. Fortunately for you, a colossus's 9 range and FFs make defending a position possible with less units than your opponent.
Defenders advantage alone makes that possible, which doesn't deal with the fact that Protoss, more than Terran or Zerg, needs a single deathball to come out on top in engagements before Storm, and pretty much nobody has disagreed that storm drops are probably much more effective than the amount of use they've seen so far suggests.
Drops never win engagements. They're always meant to do as much damage as possible before the army arrives. If you're talking about moving out while dropping. Either he has to move part of his army back to defend the drop, which can give you the advantage in the main engagement, or he tries to engage your (lesser) main army, but you can delay that engagement with forcefields while your drop does more damage.
one thing i never see protoss players do is bring a warp prism with their army and then they can insta reinforce without a pylon and without taking attention off their army
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At least, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
i think the cargo capacity is bologna 4 zealots > 8 zerglings (also 4 zealots is an 8 supply drop 8 lings is a 4 supply drop) you gotta at least argue it from the roach point of view
it isnt about the specific number of units (4 or 8) but the quality and the ways you can use them
the purpose of marine drops is mainly to kill workers marauder drop to snipe buildings roach drop for both, whatever you can get
a stalker drop seems useless in my head.. the outright dps of stalkers isn't high and they don't scale well with upgrades but someone may prove me wrong
as for zealots they have very high dps but without charge they will be killed very easily by reinforcing units pvt, and in pvz zealots arent very good against roaches however it still may work with charge
ive seen double-forge players pvt get the robo only for a couple observers.. you could work a warp prism or 2 in and do some zealot drops that would seem to be the ideal situation for drops imo
Drops in the midgame when you really need Colo/immo production. In the late game getting prism speed + dropping zeals/ht (storm lol)/dt's is suuuuuuuuuper good, and it can pin your opponent as you rebuild with a better comp after a big battle.
in general prism speed and obs speed are way underused, just as a side note.
i think chargelots for drop harassment is an underused tactic vs. terran. most of the time i see it, the zealots end up doing quite well.
most storm drops i saw a few months back, the high level players were pretty damn fast at moving workers out of the storm before the HT's cost was justified. it's not like a fungal harass where the workers are guaranteed to die. not saying it isn't worth trying more, tho.
i do think top protoss players will start bringing prisms on largescale engagements.
Protoss drops are rare because they don't need to use them. It's basically the same as how zerg drops were rare until lately since ZvP without dropping or harassing as a zerg is unreasonably difficult.
There seems to be two factions here, the people who think that the warp prism is worthless, and people who think that Protoss doesn't need to drop during standard play (for any reason)
I honestly think that it has nothing to do with the Prism itself, I think that it's that there's nothing I want to drop on the enemy. Baneling bombs are great and roach drops are killer and MM drops are cruel, but 4 zealots simply can't fight any kind of defense force until very very late game.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
And if they just decide to attack our main? refer to the post about protecting our colosus
They do lost of damage, but are essentially made of glass (not unlike the warp prism).
The thing about a protoss army, is that a couple units missing from the army can mean the difference between marginally winning the battle and getting absolutely roflstomped
Everyone faces this problem when dropping. Fortunately for you, a colossus's 9 range and FFs make defending a position possible with less units than your opponent.
Defenders advantage alone makes that possible, which doesn't deal with the fact that Protoss, more than Terran or Zerg, needs a single deathball to come out on top in engagements before Storm, and pretty much nobody has disagreed that storm drops are probably much more effective than the amount of use they've seen so far suggests.
Drops never win engagements. They're always meant to do as much damage as possible before the army arrives. If you're talking about moving out while dropping. Either he has to move part of his army back to defend the drop, which can give you the advantage in the main engagement, or he tries to engage your (lesser) main army, but you can delay that engagement with forcefields while your drop does more damage.
There are two kind of drops: the first is a damage dealing drop. Deal damage while your enemy's army is out of position, then escape when they show up for free damage.
The second, and more useful in general kind, is the distraction. You drop a few units, and basically say to the enemy "pull back your army to this location, or suffer some significant damage." This is important because you don't actually care if the drop doesn't do damage, you're using it to control your enemy's army positioning. If it does damage, cool, you didn't get your big attack off, but damage is damage, you'll take it.
In PvZ, I occasionally swap the observer out for a warp prism. It gives the same tech scouting and allows for harassing beyond lines of spine crawlers and also frees up 75 gas..
Another factor could be the relative lack of impressive harass units that would be worth dropping. 8 stim marines can do massive damage if unchecked, and since Zerg is going to have lots of overlords anyway, they can easily doom drop or just a couple Roaches at a time. There isn't a Reaver in SC2 that can 1-shot half a worker line, and Storm drops are not as impressive as they were in SCBW. Apart from the occaisional DT drop or 4 Zeal drop, mass Warp Prism isn't something you're going to see often.
On May 03 2011 08:12 Demonace34 wrote: One could make an argument that warpprisms early to midgame puts protoss at a major disadvantage, but the viability for lategame harass could buy you time to build a better deathball in a losing situation.
I don't understand how you see a lategame threat buying players time in the mid-game - the obvious reaction to a lategame threat is to end the game before the threat is realized, which is precisely what fast prism play would have trouble with.
I meant if there is an equal trade early to midgame, then someone could argue that fast warp prisms late can keep the terran back to harass while you build up another death ball. There is going to have to be a player to step forward and champion a more harass based protoss style.
A good way to try and not lose your whole drop would be blink stalkers to blink out of mains and warp in zealots on the warp prism field. This is all theorycrafting though, because I haven't seen any major use from warp prisms in big tournaments. I also don't think people want to play protoss in a harass oriented way when colossus sentry stalker or colossus chargelot high templar works so much better in direct engagements.
It's not so much the warp prism that sucks than it is what it carries. Gateway units are crap.
Anything you warp in you can't carry back home. However, it means if you lose anyting in a drop, you can run the warp prism somewhere safe, warp in a new zealot and continue the harassment unlike a OL/Medivac which might have to run all the way home to refresh it's cargo.
There are some things the prisms can carry and they are generally high tech units. Getting prisms + colossus or prisms + DTs or HTs is a very hefty tech investment. Chances are, these things can come into play, just that the game never lasts long enough or conditions good enough for the protoss to tech up. DT hit and runs can be very good. MUCH better than hoping your DT isn't caught and ultimately dying. I thought the point of harassment was to do damage for free or efficiently.
On May 03 2011 08:49 alepov wrote: 4 lots are a lot scarier than 8 lings though
An overlord full of lings costs 300 Minerals (100 for Overlord, 200 for 8 lings)--- Minus drop tech cost of course, because it essentially cancels out with the fact that the other races will be building Supply Depots and Pylons themselves as well, so the overlords essentially cost nothing but the Drop Tech cost when compared to the other races.
A Warp Prism full of Zealots costs 600 Minerals.
Therefore, for the costs it would be 16 Lings. And 16 Lings IS scarier than 4 Zealots. Plus Lings can actually kill workers that are running away, where Zealots are too slow <-- that's another major reason for the lack of drops.
One point that I haven't seen mentioned (not to say that it wasn't), was that building multiple warp prisms beyond 1 doesn't offer a whole lot of bonuses. You need overlords anyways so when you have like 25 when you are maxed, your drop ships are pretty much free, medivacs heal your army and make it all around a lot stronger. Adding extra warp prisms increases drop capacity at the cost of supply. Zergs can have 20 ovies and not hinder their army, or terran can have 8 medivacs which strengthens their army. Since the warp prisms bonus is a warp in, having 1 or 4 prisms is essentially the same. Because of this, it is inefficient to have multiple warp prisms. The problem with unloading 4 zealots and then warping in 4 more is that there is no escape. You can't load all your units back up and escape since you don't have the cargo capacity, so half your drop is guaranteed to die. The good thing about the warp prism is that you can send it in empty and warp units in, then escape, but if there are units there to greet the drop, you may lose the warp prism, but nothing inside.
4 zealots in a mineral line can do pretty decent damage to it and is not to be underestimated. It is quite a good late game harass when people have multiple bases. But since it is impractical to have a ton of warp prisms, you are often limited to supply space so you want efficient units, which is why storm drops are the best, as 4 storms and then 2 archons can really tear a mineral line apart. Warp prisms are also quite fast which is an advantage over other things (and non speed warp prisms move as fast as medivacs and faster than overlords, why do people say they are too slow). Warp prisms are also good in pvp before colossi are out, since you can hover it near your enemies base and if they attack you, FF your ramp and warp zealots into their mineral line and they have 0 eco which makes their attack all in and quite often wins you the game, which is great for pinning people in pvp while you tech off of 1 base.
The last thing you see them that they are great for is immortal play. Dropping immortals on top of tanks is insanely good, and picking up colossi can help some too.
So basically, warp prisms are great for small cute plays and harasses, but not for big drops like dropping 8 marauders to snipe a hatch or dropping 40 roaches to end the game. So they are more difficult to execute and while they can do a lot of damage, they are underused since they are different than other drop plays.
Warp prisms are fine if you accept that they are a micro utility not a drop mechanic. Because they offer no direct assistance to army strength like medivacs and are hard to mass unlike overlords. Add to that the fact that toss doesnt have any cheap powerful harassment units and I dont think we will ever see toss drops dropping like we see terrans do now. At least until HotS they will be relegated to very composition specific lift/drop micro and warp in gimmicks.
i think removing the speed upgrade and just defaulting the speed with the prism would buff it appropratley. It would mimick the speedy pheonix and stalker and complimanet the arsenal better. It needs a biff with the all the toss nerfs (i think the pylon radius is completely unnessesary)
I saw boxer protect his ghosts from feedback by putting them in his medivacs (of course you have to make sure your medivacs have low energy so they don't get feedbacked either). I think protoss could use this technique to keep HT safe from EMP/snipe after they tech swtich from robo to templar tech. Also storm drops are disgusting for harass....
Even for midgame harass, zealots in the mineral line cannot be cleaned up by workers, thus forcing a response. Keeping the WP alive isn't really any more difficult than keeping medivacs alive.
I agree with the general sentiment that most protoss will find it advantageous to keep their army together to fight, especially while still on colossus tech.
Some interesting logic for everyone: Terrans and more recently zerg have been dropping protoss like crazy. Inference: Dropping is good against protoss, moreso then other races.
Style of PvP: Blink Stalker harass and then base trade. Blink Stalkers do not instantly kill other toss because they cannot win in a straight up fight, but they can harass to death. Fact: Blink Requires twilight council, which has no detection. Fact: If you are harassing with blink you'll want an observer to see on the high ground and to see dark templar. Inference: Blink Stalker Harass with Dark Templar drops should be good against protoss. Fact: Dark templar kill Collosi disturbingly fast
Any unit warped in via Warp Prism isn't coming home unless they flat-up kill whatever they're dropped into, as well as the reinforcements that come home to fight them off.
It's a bit depressing (not to mention wasteful at times) knowing that anything beyond the 8 supply of units you initially drop is guaranteed to die. Edit: @Poster above - couldn't you just get hallucinate and use that to spot the high ground?
warp prisms just dont have secondary uses... or let me reword that... they dont have primary uses.
you dont get overlords because you want to drop. you get them for your supply. you dont get medivacs just for drops, you wanna heal your army.
you'll generally have more of these units than necessary for just dropping your enemy. Dropping is just an option for zerg/terran where as for protoss warp prisms only purpose is dropping.
If dropping isnt working, they're useless and just take away robo building time and minerals. especially if you create more than just one.
on top of that they're the weakest droppers in every aspect... they take longer to build, they have the fewest hit points and they have the worst secondary effect.(I would gladly take health regeneration or in zergs case bait overlords/creep generation/baneling drops)
the reason white-ra is so successfull with them is because he is pretty much the only guy that uses them consistently. people are just not expecting it that often when they play against toss... I mean, if they can defend terran/zerg drops than protoss warp prism drops should be the easiest to handle, they just dont see it as a threat most of the time and hence have fewer defenses against it.
I think it would be pretty awesome if one Brood War unit was re-added in Heart of the Swarm. If the unit for each race was chosen carefully it could open up tons of new options (and balance threads) and give some underused units a chance to shine.
Like people have said before in this thread, the shuttle was nothing without its reaver.
That said, I would probably not use a warp prism unless some mega-abusive tactic came around, but protoss feels like it's in a strange place right now with one super-duper-mega-power unit.
On May 03 2011 06:43 FatkiddsLag wrote: im going to start making another robo just to pump out warp prisms
Excellent point. The point of taking away production of Collossusses is in my opinion moot. Heavy drop play is usually a midgame thing and another 200/100 to produce observers and warp prisms if you have need won´t kill you on 2 bases or 3 bases.
Another moot point is in my opinion comparison with medivacs. Medivacs block production of vikings entirely(cost about the same). Medivacs are good with bio, but other (e.g. Hellion) drops are still viable even when building few to no infantry. Prisms are as fast as Medivacs(2.5) and get really fast with upgrade. Also would you rather pay 100 gas or 100 minerals?
Some issues I see are: The warp field encourages heavy warpgate use(1 prism-> infinte units) instead of drops. Blinkstalker and Colossusses don´t need drops to travel cliffs and Stalkers can traverse small chasms. The (usual) Colossus heavy army functions only with 3+ Colossusses and promotes the use of anti air, further discouraging drop play. Most P units are worthless in low-middlish numbers. Drops would require high tech units(coloss/templar/air) with them to have a costefficient troop.
On a side note I find it actually positive that all P units take 2 spaces or more. First of all every unit takes its supply in spaces(there is no 1 supply unit for P). On the same note dropping big units is a lot faster than dropping small ones(dropping 2 immortals is as fast as dropping 2 zealots or 2 marines).
In my opinion Protoss drops aren´t common is because P units aren´t effective in small numbers anymore. In brood war Reaver drops were awesome. In SC2, you´d need Templar to have something similar and Templar take forever to tech.
Warp Prism should come from the Cybernetics Core. It doesn't belong in the Robotics. Making a warp prism is a big decision for protoss since it deprives two other very good units. Whereas Terran and Zerg just make dropships anyway for healing and supply. Their ability to drop is already there regardless, so they can use it more often.
I can see the taking of the production slot argument early/mid game over a colossus is a valid one as the importance of the colossus is pretty incredible for some but as the game goes on I still question as to why Protoss doesn't use them. If a terran sees colossus he now needs to strike a balance himself between whether he wants to build medivacs or vikings. Additionally, it most likely also means there is a reactor on that starport as 2x starport may not yet be sustainable. This in turn now restricts the building of a banshee or a raven without some building dancing. So in a sense, other races have to make sacrifices as well.
Though I have to disagree with most of your points for a few reasons.
Comparing their HP to overlords isn't a terribly fair comparison. Overlords are a supply farm unit and to put them at any less HP would lead to some terribly abusable OL harass strats vs Terran I would think, or even phoenix/void rays. Additionally, their research is actually a little more as you have to consider lair tech as well as speed, at least another 200 gas (I don't think anyone's dropping with .47 speed overlords).
I think you overlook that secondary effect, citing that they can be picked off and the warp in canceled is a bit weak. Any other transport dropping and getting picked off will lose it the units inside. Zerg has more to lose as they will also lose a supply cap unit which they may have to rebuild. Even though that's 8 zerglings or 8 marines, that's still 200 and 400 minerals respectively. The numbers they lose really don't matter as the point is they will most likely lose their transport and their cargo. Should the warp prism die mid warp, you not only receive your money back from the still warping units, but the cooldowns as well, so really you're just out the 200 minerals.
Additionally if you consider the fact that it takes 8 seconds for Zerg and Terran to drop 8 food worth of units from their cargo, the warp prism can actually transport far more food in shorter time. Curiously I jumped into unit tester to see how much you could actually fit on a warp prism's powerfield. You can warp in about 25 stalkers, and about 34 zealots (clarification: individually, not simultaneously heh). Though no one will ever do that, a more realistic number could be 10 stalkers, or 10 zealots, or that, plus a mix of dts. Considering the fact that as the game goes on it's highly likely the protoss will be warping off of 10+ gates. There's really no other transport that has the potential to do that unless a vast number of them are being used. In Zerg's case that might mean the potential to lose important supply cap unit which will allow for their army to be replenished as now larva have to spent on overlords lost from a failed drop. Terran instead has to sacrifice a pretty steep gas price which will consequently also effect unit composition.
Other than the nydus worm, there's really no other unit that has the ability to transport *supply* (as opposed to actual unit count) of that number for such a little cost.
But getting on to why they aren't used, I'd have to say the reason is simply that unless you know where an opposing army is, you'd rather not risk blowing 10 warpgate cooldowns when you'll most likely need them to be with your army. Additionally, I don't think there has been a build promoted enough to encourage this. A lot of the trends in this game we see are from the top tier players and with all due respect to White-Ra, there are some other Protoss players out there that are having more prestigious success, as a result we seem to follow strategies and playstyles they can emulate that are winning tournaments (this goes for all races).
I truly don't think the HP is the issue. If anything I think their HP totally justifies the potential they have. We see a lot of terran drops that happen in the vision of an opponents base, Warp Prisms don't really need to be done like this, they can sit off on the edge of the fog and warp. Their upgrade is also pretty awesome, and after you've already got your colossus research you may as well get a warp prism with speed for later.
I think the author's point about droppable units is the most salient. zealots are probably the least useful harass units. They buy time rather than kill miners. Lings and Rines do a better job of straight up killing workers (though arguably might die a touch faster than the zels do).
Collosi drop is risky and those and storm drops are not quite the reaver shells we miss.
I think the Protoss tech choices are too unflexable, but that is the Style of the race itself. And right now it is balanced, but to encorperate WPs it would help a lot to make them not so all-in-ish to produce
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: The Warp Prism costs 200 Minerals, not exactly cheap. Medivacs cost 100/100 and Overlords cost just 100, with the research to be able to drop costing 200/200, which is only a one time cost, so the more drops you use the more cost efficient the research becomes. However, where are these units made? Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game. Overlords from Larvae of course and are staple. However, the Warp Prism is made from the Robotics, taking away crucial time that an Immortal or Colossi could be building at. My point is that from the Protoss' perspective, making a Warp Prism even to start with is a choice that might come back and bite them later in the game.
Here's a couple of problems with this point:
Warp Prisms are the only of those dropping units that you do not need to invest gas in.
Overlord drops without speed upgrade? Are you kidding me? Let's be realistic Z has to invest 300/300 into two very costly upgrades. Assuming that Z is on two base when they get those upgrades, that's also a lot of time that they cannot be researching Burrow or making Queens.
I don't know if you have ever played TvP before, but when you're going up against a P who is making a lot of Colossi, it is imperative that you have at least 1 reactor Starport making lots of Vikings. This seriously cuts into Terran Medivac production and makes using one to go harass with exceedingly hard to do unless they create a second reactor Starport. That costs 200 minerals 150 gas and at the very least 100 seconds. That's a lot of resources and time for a Terran to be investing just into medivacs.
So sure, P's need to cut Colossi or Immortal production to make their Warp Prisms, but so does every other race.
4. Cargo Capacity
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At least, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
The most effective drops for T or Z usually use 2 supply units anyways. The best drops are either Hellion Drops for T (4 hellions max) or Baneling Drops for Z (4 Banes max). Each of those can deal massive damage in a matter of seconds to an unsuspecting opponent by killing entire lines of drones/scvs/probes. Of course, P has a unit that is also ridiculously good for these sorts of mineral line harass that kills off many workers very quickly.
Once again, taking time out of Colossi production is just like how a Terran takes time out of Medivac production to create Vikings. I do not believe that that is really a valid point whatsoever.
Why does your drop need to consist of Gateway units? Why not be more interesting and drop a few DTs. That could take a T or a Z forever to finally clear them out of their base. Or how about dropping two Immortals and trying to snipe Supply Depots or Add-ons?
As I was saying earlier, P can load a Templar or two into a Warp Prism and go around storming mineral lines. Sure your Templar cannot be used in a rush manner like blue hellions, but later on they could be very useful. Maybe get speed on your Prism and quickly fly in a Templar, storm, and fly away before your opponent even has time to pull their workers.
Sure those suggestions above (DTs, Immortals, Templar, maybe even Colossi) are all high tech units. But who's to say that a couple of Zealots dropped in a Terran's base right as their army moves out couldn't force them to completely come back, possibly kill some SCVs, and definitely delay some mining time?
One final point I would like to bring up as to why I think Protoss drops could be very effective were there any reason for a Protoss to harass (let's face it sitting back and macroing up that A-move death ball is so strong right now there's no reason not to just focus on that) is that Warp Prisms are the fastest of all dropping units. While I do not believe they are as good for mass drops like Overlords or Medivacs (because they do cost a lot of resources and do not have much of a secondary use), but hey having one Warp Prism could allow you to quickly transport your High Templars, keep them safe from any sort of EMP, and also allow you to quickly move in and completely destroy a mineral line. I don't know if any of you have seen a speed upgraded Warp Prism (I had played quite a while before I ever saw how fast it went) and I can say that it is ridiculous and quite surprising. For instance, when you do Baneling/Zergling in ZvP, the P has a very small window to react to your baneling drops on their mineral line or else they will possibly lose the entire game and certainly lose their probes. Now imagine that time is even less (and storms can be equally as effective and more cost efficient then baneling drops as you don't lose any units, just energy).
Like I mentioned in the above paragraph, I think it would be really interesting as a T player to see a P try to do some drop ship micro and just keep their Templar in their Warp Prisms to make EMPs almost impossible to land. Sure it would require exceedingly good micro, but when you want to storm you drop a Templar, storm, and pick the Prism back up. Until the fight, of course, you'd keep your prism well behind the Stalkers. Perhaps this would require some crazy good micro, but I think that if it were done effectively it could prove to create the Templar as being near impossible to beat with a Terran bio army as they could not be EMPed.
Protoss players just need to be more inventive with their builds (I mean let's face it even at the highest level you still have players doing 4 gates in all match-ups and they hardly ever deviate from those early game, warp gate all-ins). Granted there are some great top tier P's (White-Ra <3) who are exceedingly creative. Then you have players like Choya or CrunCher with very repetitive play and no idea what harassment is.
Another thing is that most gateway units (perhaps with the exception of HT/DT) just make for poor harassment units. Workers can run away from zealots, and the DPS of 4 stalkers is laughable compared to that of 8 marines with stim. The real DPS units, like Collossi and Immortals(If you're sniping buildings) Are usually too valuable to risk in the flimsy warp prism. The nice thing for Terran is that their highest DPS units are also their cheapest. Marines are balanced by their low health, which ideally plays no role at all in drop harassment.
Also, the prism's secondary mechanic, warp-in, is meant to add to the strength of a drop by allowing it to bring in units beyond its carrying capacity. However, this ends up hurting it in most situations, because it essentially eliminates the option of retreat. Terran can drop in when their opponent is out of position, snipe some buildings, and pick up and leave by the time defenses arrive, losing nothing. Meanwhile, if Protoss warp units in for extra DPS, the drop is suddenly a suicide mission, with the option of escape only for some of the units.
I really do hope we'll see more warp prism play in the future; I think HT/DT drops in particular still haven't been used to their full potential, but I'm not holding my breath. The synergy just isn't there for Protoss as much as it is for Terran.
Colossi are so important in all Protoss MU's that their production basically never halts once started. The ample time in which the Robo is up without a Colossus den is basically the only time when other units are constructed from it. In those relatively early game situations detection/ scouting with observers is better than having a warp prism, same goes for the immortal when Toss needs to survive a push. Players are generally only just on 2-base when the Robo finishes, making drops very unlikely to be cost-effective.
If Toss play ever starts getting warpgate oriented, foregoing Colossi for DT's, HT's and Archons, I see the Warp Prism playing a much bigger role. Currently Colossi play eats heavily into the Toss gateway count and it occupies the robo build time. If they aren't built though the Toss has more gateways and more importantly, a lot of robo production time. When some observers have been built Toss is free to add immortals and warp prism to his liking which is really effective to quickly reinforce, do sneaky warp-ins and even immortal drop micro.
Basically there's nothing wrong with the warp prism, the Colossus is just too good comparatively.
Warp prisms serve no purpose other than dropping. Medivacs are amazing units for dropping and healing, and Zerg have a ton of overlords just laying around that are very cheap. Especially when you can bring more overlords than you need so the enemy will target down unloaded overlords if it is spotted.
When a warp prism isn't being used at any time it's just wasted supply.
On May 03 2011 09:16 Zidane wrote: Can a WP with speed upgrade outrun a viking?
Yes, yes it can, assuming it lives long enough to turn around and run directly away from it. Which is unlikely, since it's made of paper.
I have to assume you probably never tried it. Just from memory I can tell you are wrong, but I went the extra 10 seconds to Liquipedia to confirm the following:
A Viking kills a Medivac faster than a WP.(6 hits to 7 hits) With the absurd speed of 3.375 a speed WP has a good chance of escape since only Mutalisk(3.75) and phoenixes(4.25) are faster in the air.
The real problems I see are that there will be more than 1 viking if you go colossus and the transform animation taking 2 seconds.
Also there is no unit really worth speed dropping instead of regular dropping.
It is a buffed shuttle ^.^ no reason not to use it. Dts are still there, hts ... zealots. And now even immortals for take down buildings with low hp in a pinch + you can get obs speed from the same building as shuttle speed yayness. Terrans have a good anti air in tvp though mostly, so aiding in battle is more a pvz thing. They are perfect for harassing though, don't even need to be filled so your current army won't be hurt if its floating around waiting for an engagement to sneak in warp in 4 zealots and completly shut down a base and force a worker slide (or all the workers will die). Also they are super fast so unlike the other drop ships they can't be chased down by air units. Its almost always worth getting it if the game goes on for a bit. And the build/reasearch timings are just perfect (support dock speed reasearch n colossi). And you often see the robo not doing anything while the support dock goes up, so its only an excuse for people who fear the micro part of the game.
But well i shouldn't complain most of the time its just this one robo the toss gets that makes me win games and also not having to fear drops from a toss makes it so much easier to fight against them.
As toss atm prism play is super effectiv in any matchup since people never think of it and suddenly while fighting there are 4 zealots dropped in one expansions while the prism is on its way to warp in more zealots in the other expansions. Or suddenly a prism appears drops a sentry blocks of the ramp of an zerg expansions drops a few zealots too and warps in some blink stalkers and takes care of the hatch.
And while i think its not the robo occupied with other stuff or because its weak hped or slow or blocks thermal lances research (you don't need that asap ... you want 4 colossi anyway before moving out and you can micro them defensly easy enough, more true in pvz though)
Its more the high mobility on the maps that the toss has anyway. Blink stalkers on the current maps can go anywhere anyway, and colossi too. Which is what most armys in pvz look like.
So while the warp prism doesn't really fit into this colossi stalkers style, it fits into alot of other playstyles. And i guess once the toss wants to increase their speed they will also use warp prisms alot more ^^. (using them early game against some current popular zerg builds would be a good start ... 2 immortals a warp prism and 4 gates warping in zealots, if this hits unscouted its good night zerg main)
PS: sc2 storm drops are more effectiv then bw storm drops ... just for the record. (more workers per base and you still only need 2 storms, especially vs terrans its way more effectiv because of the reduced worker hp compared to bw)
But in generall people will stick with what the pros do and if the pros are comfortable with a playstyle as its effectiv there is no need to switch it up or reveal their hidden tactics. Be sure that you will soon see lots of baneling vs protoss especially with drops xD. It was know since the beta and only recently gained some popularity. (sigh no one expected this before, winning now will get harder)
I know that my analysis isn't perfect and my points can be refutable, keep in mind this is my first contribution and to be honest, posting a thread on TL is kinda scary. D:
I think if you open stargate, you have the option of several different harassments, but late game you could continue colossi production on robotics but throw down a stargate for warp prisms and voids or phoenix later on.
On May 03 2011 07:54 mavsfan0041 wrote: Ok I don't play toss so I might be a little off but this is my take on it.
Build two warp prisms, load with 8 zealots, fly to opponents base, unload, warp in 4,5,6 stalkers behind it. That's a pretty potent force that can be in the back of your base with like 10 seconds of arriving. While two warp prisms may take time out of the robo, they cost no gas. So during that time you could be using your gas to tech down other paths like *gasp* HTs! Something not colossus. And once your warp prisms are done, you can gently push out immortals or colossus if you don't want just HTs.
Main Point: Get more than one warp prism, use gas on other things.
Of course that would mean that you have a robo bay not producing anything for a while or two robos making two warp prisms leaving you vulnerable while they are not making collossus. And you'd have to have your tech tree up to HT including twilight council and HT archives, then you'd have to have storm upgraded for HT to be useful then you'd have to have them up long enough because the amulet is gone. So this means this option is only available late game and while the force is formidable, the late game army of any opponent will be up to the task.... Crippling the death ball of 8 zealots and 4 - 6 stalkers...
Yes you would have one robo bay not producing colossus or immortals for a while (I wasn't suggesting building 2 robos), but at the end you have templar and up until the moment you leave your base, your entire army is still there. About not having your whole army there if they attack you, that's a problem no matter what race you are. When I used to play terran, I would load up to medivacs to try a drop only to miss the other guy's army and lose because I basically split my army in two. That's a risk not intrinsic to warp prism play.
On May 03 2011 09:48 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: I know that my analysis isn't perfect and my points can be refutable, keep in mind this is my first contribution and to be honest, posting a thread on TL is kinda scary. D:
The fact that we are on page 9/10 means your thread has generated pretty good discussion; that or there are no mods around :p
I'd say you provide an interesting analysis - while i posted earlier disagreeing with a lot that you have to say, doesn't mean you are wrong; i feel you are commenting on the current state of things rather than what is possible
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but there are 2 things I see wrong with this analysis.
Overlord dropping is only 200/200, but speed is also 100/100. You need speed to drop, so the cost is 300/300 + 100 for each overlord. It isn't cheap in the gas department, but we shouldn't really complain because they only cost Minerals if we lose them whereas a Medevac would cost gas.
The complaining about the Warp Prism only being able to carrying 8 units is kind of not well thought out. Warp Prisms carry the 4 zealots and then can warp in an unlimited amount of units with the Zealots if there are sufficient WGs available. Warp Prisms, in theory, are better than Medevacs and Overlords in the amount of units they can "drop off."
I like using the warp prisms. It reinforces armies quickly and can be used to harass? Drop a couple of zealots and then warp-in DTs or Stalkers. While attacking the front it sounds pretty sweet. Even building a forward pylon may sound better but the warp prism is able to move and can carry units. I think it's underused because of this forward pylon. Making a warp prism before observer may be better than actually. I think it'd be extremely good for harass and may pay itself off. The game is still evolving look at BW it evolved and the use of queens became a game changer in TvZ.
Want to compare OVs to something? How about to pylons/supply depots. OV 200hp 0 armor. Supply 400hp 1 armor. Pylon 200sh/200hp 1 armor. Also OV move... that is the excuse I guess for their low HP but they are slow as shit even with the upgrade. If they didn't have the potential to drop they probably wouldn't be getting sniped all the time because they would have a higher HP. Still all these detriments don't stop Z from dropping.
Real reason why Protoss doesn't drop has been stated many times already. Why drop (or make warp prism) when you can just spam a few more Colossus. Want more drops? Nerf Colossus so it doesn't seem like you are losing out if your Robo isn't always churning one out. Don't QQ that you can't build another Robo... I guess having 11 wg and 3 robo is just too bad compared to 12wg and 2 robo.
Fact: Right now Toss army comp is so powerful there is no reason to do anything but WG + Colossus.
I dont like how the OP begins with: this is not balance related and to keep balance whine/discussion out of it and then concludes with leaving it as be or buffing it.
Analysis was very obvious and shallow. Any competent player could have told you the same thing without the fluff.
OP i think you should go further with some of the points. Some areas to delve into:
the fact that as the game goes on, the warp prism built time is 'missed' less. The fact that you made a warp prism instead of that X can be at times more irrelevant as the game approaches end game. chronoboost factor etc.
There are certain timings you have to invest in a warp prism to make them cost effective, explore these options. If you are losing a battle you would not get a warp prism because you are gonna need the build time to replenish collosi and you will not ha. But if you think about it, if you are trading units, the other player is not likely to push to your main allowing for prism counter?
I agree that with T they are always good utility for bio and with the nature of the marine in sc2, you will always be using them as a mineral dump, specially on maps where gas is a limiting factor. With Z you always got overlords so you got the drop and speed upgrade investments, but they are resource limited only not time, and one time. But i dont think its that warp prisms are weak, they just havent found their niche since the templar nerf. Shit still needs to be tested.
On May 03 2011 10:26 travis wrote: I think warp prisms should be able to warp in while moving. So they don't have to be "deployed", or whatever it's called.
If the warp prism's field moves out of range of a unit warping in, the warpin is canceled.
If they did this, warp prisms would be super cool.
At first I was like "How would this change anything?" but then I realized that actually would fix a lot... They would be able to get away faster if something finds them while trying to warp in so their "paperness" becomes slightly less of an issue with good reaction times. And if a warpin does get canceled you only lose the gateway cooldown right? Not minerals and gas afaik. The only thing that might be a problem is doing say, white ra immortal/warp prism micro AND being able to warp in zealots at the same time and same place might be a bit OP.
I think the biggest reason why drops for protoss units arn't used is because how bad the units you drop are.
the real options you have to drop with are 4 zealots, 4 stalkers, 4 DT, or 4 HT or some combination there of.
Zealots unsupported are pretty terrible cause any target can just run away, and they take a long time to kill any buildings.
Stalkers do such low damage that 4 of them is next to worthless and they can blink which allows for more mobility, and they less vulnerable(not stuck in the prism that can die and cause all of them to die)
HT and DT are more viable IMO since they are better in small numbers. HTs can storm and kill whole mineral lines in seconds, and DT force scans or other kinds of detection and can still level bases in a short amount of time if there isnt detection. but this is only a very late game tactic since it takes so long to get them
Combine this with the fact that if you warp anything then you cant bring your troops back with you. If you make enough warp prisms to pull your units back after the attack you have a large number of these useless warp prisms taking up food. For Terran the medivacs help keep your bio ball alive so much longer so its not really a loss to have them taking suppy. For zerg ovies actually give you supply.
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At least, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
May appeal less, but it's definitely better than the measly 8 Zerglings. 4 Chargelots for example will do so much damage.
Also another part you don't emphasize or comment enough on is that the Warp Prism is the "strongest" drop since you can bring potentially more units; the units inside and additional units being warped in. And if you kill the WP, the additional units being warped in will be refunded and the production cycles reset again, so it's not much of a loss.
With the rise of popularity and effectiveness (balance patches) of the Templar Tech, I think we'll see more drops as the Robo isn't making Colossi or has stopped making them in favor of HTs. And if not, I'll be doing that anyways.
Also another thing... I don't think most people realize there is a Warp Prism speed upgrade and observer speed upgrade? Both for 100/100, but the speed increase is shocking. Hell, you could use a leftover WP to scout around the map for expansions in place of an observer.
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
END OF DISCUSSION, this is exactly why. Nothing is wrong with the warp prism, it's a tight unit. But terran and zerg have cheap units that deal big damage, which are perfect for drops, while toss dont. So really warp prisms are just flying pylons that you use to feel pr0.
i see what hes talking about with the hole loss of production, but if you can get a good drop off you will end up miles ahead. granted that can go both ways, but still. i feel the risk is worth it in the end. would love a bit more HP though. ^^
There's nothing good to drop as Protoss except for DTs.
4 blue flame hellions? You can wipe out an entire mineral line with that. 8 marines? Stim them and you can destroy some buildings if the response is delayed.
Plus you're going to build medivacs anyways, so you can drop 16 or 24 marines and really wreak some havoc.
Zerg has access to doom drops after upgrading their OLs. Bane drops in the mineral line are basically unavoidable unless you have some great defense, and even then you just need to get lucky and have one baneling go off near a group of probes.
Protoss is screwed in this regard. Colossus/Templars are too valuable to risk and they are mainly a late game option in which you can do that fancy drop shit or you can just go kill him with that much AoE available. Zealots/Stalkers are too weak in small numbers to do much damage. Everything else is a joke. There's no reaver type unit which benefits from increased mobility alongside it's ability to cause massive damage.
How are people saying that there are no droppable Units? Especially after the Amulet Nerf HT are the droppable unit from the P army.
The thing about any drop play its that its mostly High risk high reward and since Protoss have no need to risk it atm thats why we don't see P drops so much
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: Warp Prisms, if caught, can get picked off and destroyed faster before all cargo is unloaded or before we can get away compared to the other transport units
If they're caught then, yes, they can be destroyed faster than the other dropships. However, generally, if a dropship is caught it's dead anyway. If I manage to get in a position to attack a warp prism and kill it, I can almost definitely do the same with a medivac/overlord regardless of health/armour difference.
The Warp Prism costs 200 Minerals, not exactly cheap. Medivacs cost 100/100 and Overlords cost just 100, with the research to be able to drop costing 200/200, which is only a one time cost, so the more drops you use the more cost efficient the research becomes.
Warp prism only costs minerals. As the game progresses gas becomes more and more of an issue due to tech advancing so when your dropship only costs minerals it's a huge bonus.
Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game.
This is, frankly, wrong as the Terran will mostly be producing vikings vs the typical colossi seen in TvP. Yes, they'll build a few medivacs at the start and here and there throughout the game. However, once the Protoss starts producing colossi, the Terran generally has to start producing non-stop vikings otherwise they're going to die. This completely negates the rest of your argument.
The Medivac can heal the drop units, increasing the cost effectiveness of the Terran units. Overlords just provide supply, and the Warp Prism can create a power field. That allows you to of course, warp in more units than you can have in the actual Warp Prism, but in conjunction with Point 1, the Warp Prism can get picked off some of the time and your units will be cancelled. Which brings me to the next and final point.
Why the huge double standard? You argue that medivacs can heal the dropping units thus increasing the effectiveness, but a Warp Prism is suddenly useless because it can be picked off so there's no point warping in? What stops you from sniping the medivac that's healing the drop? What stops you from protecting your own warp prism with the units that you drop initially whilst it's warping in? What stops you from using an observer to scout for when the units are coming back to defend so you know when to cancel warpin and retreat?
4. Cargo Capacity
Warpin. End of.
But, really, the reason that warp prisms aren't used so much is that Protoss don't have to with their current style of play (as stated by others in the thread). Why would Protoss want to harass when they're not really scared of a late game engagement generally? Sure, they might want to prevent expansions going down incase their opponent is being greedy but they don't need drops to do that. A Terran player needs to drop Protoss to try and delay their 200/200 "deathball" as it's more cost effective than the 200/200 Terran army. Zerg players have been experimenting with drops/nydus worm play lately for the exact same reason.
On May 03 2011 10:26 travis wrote: I think warp prisms should be able to warp in while moving. So they don't have to be "deployed", or whatever it's called.
If the warp prism's field moves out of range of a unit warping in, the warpin is canceled.
If they did this, warp prisms would be super cool.
At first I was like "How would this change anything?" but then I realized that actually would fix a lot... They would be able to get away faster if something finds them while trying to warp in so their "paperness" becomes slightly less of an issue with good reaction times. And if a warpin does get canceled you only lose the gateway cooldown right? Not minerals and gas afaik. The only thing that might be a problem is doing say, white ra immortal/warp prism micro AND being able to warp in zealots at the same time and same place might be a bit OP.
They don't even cost you a gateway cooldown to be honest (it's the same as killing the pylon as units warp in).
I actually tested this out in the map editor at some point (back when I was trying and failing to make a custom UMS map) and it didn't work out too well. Essentially, you could not warp units in as you moved, because even slow things (like a Mothership with the full sized pylon field) could not get units in before it moved outside the range. The current range of the power field is so small that having an "instant switch" would provide essentially the same effect unless units warp in a lot faster under the Warp Prism (food for thought).
Its because gateway units are completely terrible in small numbers against what the enemy will defend with (lings/roaches or marines/marauders). Also terran and protoss can defend drops very easily. Stimmed MMM or lings will arrive in no time. Theres simply not opportunity to drop unless they are way out of position.
Its completely the opposite reasons why protoss get dropped all the time. MMM or roach drops require a much bigger (more expensive) protoss army to clean up than what was dropped. Protoss is by far the slowest race to respond unless they have many idle warpgates even if they have blink stalkers out.
This seems to be intentional design by Blizzard, not a balance issue.
It's to risky as a drop ship. Unless you're carrying HTs with storm energy already. You just want to use the warp in ability in the shadows, which is safer than risking 4 units inside a glass ship.
On May 03 2011 11:19 windsupernova wrote: How are people saying that there are no droppable Units? Especially after the Amulet Nerf HT are the droppable unit from the P army.
The thing about any drop play its that its mostly High risk high reward and since Protoss have no need to risk it atm thats why we don't see P drops so much
That's an extremely late game option and leaves your main army open to attack. Even pre-amulet nerf, it wasn't really worth dropping HT because storm is pretty weak. It's radius is small and the DPS is low enough to escape with workers. Other than that, what the heck else are you going to drop? 4 zealots is probably the only thing worth doing because they can hit hard. Anything else you warp in goes on a suicide mission.
For Protoss, drops are high risk, low reward due to the nature of their units.
Personally I've found that as the robo bay is coming online is the perfect time to build one warp prism, I go obs, bay, obs, prism; in all three match-ups fairly often. This saves gas to start collosus and range while keeping another production structure busy, a win-win.
The effectiveness of 1 warp prism is unbelievable, the thing doesn't even need to have a unit in it when it leaves, just warp in and load up close to the drop zone, no units traveling around the map. Warp prisms do not need a buff, they need to be experimented with.
Their is an idea I had floating around for some weeks.
So Basically the warpprism have just some ued strategies: Warp in Harass (since every toss wants to warp in DTs in the opponents mainbase ) Zealboming on Banes (even if its not that effectiv like the old BW Zealbombs on spidermines, and 2 Immo drops against Tech structures.
All these are so havely countered from the normal game plan, because every MU the opponent builds AA in response to an Robotics just for the imense fear of Colossi. So the Opponent have a big ball of AA and then the KNowlodge of the Drops or harassment after first tries, their is no longer Use for the Warp prisms at all. The Secondory abillity isnt so valueable like gettin supply or healing Bio balls.
SO I thought about it as giving the Warp Prisms the old Abillity of the BW Shield Battery. Another REason was that their is no Healing Unit for Toss in the Game while Terran have the Medivac and Zergs have transfuse. But I could imagine that the Shield charging would be a valueable Skill .
One problem I've had is simply that the cheap units (the ones I feel the most comfortable loading up into the fragile Warp Prism to fly away) aren't very good for drops. Terrans can drop Marines and Marauders, which are both ranged units. Zergs can drop highly mobile zerglings, or hydras and roaches, which are ranged units. Protoss can drop mostly stalkers and zealots, however. I find that 4 zealots spend too long trying to squeeze through a mineral line to reach harvesters to do any significant damage. 4 stalkers aren't really effective without a zealot to tank damage, and 1 zealot and 3 stalkers won't really be able to do too much damage to a mineral line. That being said, there are other uses for drops, but I feel that overall, low-tier protoss units are not condusive to drops.
Great Post. I have been playing around with the warp prism a great deal recently in PvP. I think colossus builds rely heavily on gas, so it's quite easy to slip in a warp prism between CB colossus. I have been putting front pressure with my main army and then trying to split their army with warp prism harass at the back of their base. It's a very viable strat despite the warp prism not being the greatest of units. I would love to see a buff in it's health.
On May 03 2011 13:06 Datum wrote: One problem I've had is simply that the cheap units (the ones I feel the most comfortable loading up into the fragile Warp Prism to fly away) aren't very good for drops. Terrans can drop Marines and Marauders, which are both ranged units. Zergs can drop highly mobile zerglings, or hydras and roaches, which are ranged units. Protoss can drop mostly stalkers and zealots, however. I find that 4 zealots spend too long trying to squeeze through a mineral line to reach harvesters to do any significant damage. 4 stalkers aren't really effective without a zealot to tank damage, and 1 zealot and 3 stalkers won't really be able to do too much damage to a mineral line. That being said, there are other uses for drops, but I feel that overall, low-tier protoss units are not condusive to drops.
TLDR: Low-tier protoss units suck for drops (?)
4 zealots > 8 Zerglings in a worker line. Why the complaining? The only thing Zerg has on the Zealots is the movement speed, but Charge can help. HT/DT are also better than anything any other race has. Use them more often.
The problem is using them midgame. There's really nothing cost efficient unit to warp in as scvs/drones can be pulled easily and anything can clean tier 1 toss units up easily.
On May 03 2011 13:06 Datum wrote: One problem I've had is simply that the cheap units (the ones I feel the most comfortable loading up into the fragile Warp Prism to fly away) aren't very good for drops. Terrans can drop Marines and Marauders, which are both ranged units. Zergs can drop highly mobile zerglings, or hydras and roaches, which are ranged units. Protoss can drop mostly stalkers and zealots, however. I find that 4 zealots spend too long trying to squeeze through a mineral line to reach harvesters to do any significant damage. 4 stalkers aren't really effective without a zealot to tank damage, and 1 zealot and 3 stalkers won't really be able to do too much damage to a mineral line. That being said, there are other uses for drops, but I feel that overall, low-tier protoss units are not condusive to drops.
TLDR: Low-tier protoss units suck for drops (?)
4 zealots > 8 Zerglings in a worker line. Why the complaining? The only thing Zerg has on the Zealots is the movement speed, but Charge can help.
4 zealots < 4 roaches, or banelings, or hydras, or infestors, or one ultra, or pretty much anything else. Only thing protoss has to drop that'd be better than a zealot would be DT's (EXPENSIVE) which are better spread out for various reasons, or archons, which aren't actually too bad to drop to be honest.
On May 03 2011 12:48 TheFrankOne wrote: Personally I've found that as the robo bay is coming online is the perfect time to build one warp prism, I go obs, bay, obs, prism; in all three match-ups fairly often. This saves gas to start collosus and range while keeping another production structure busy, a win-win.
How many gateway units do you have/ are you constantly building stalkers from your gates then?
I feel like I generally rush out that first collosi just in case of any early agro or is this just a scouted response thing. Sorry for such vague questions >> need to play more.
The three best things about the shuttle were reaver micro, storm drops and zealot bombs. Storm drops are the only thing that still exist (well I guess you could zealot bomb, but the only thing that would die would be the zealot), and storm drops really aren't as effective as in BW. Incidentally, all 3 were really exciting to watch in BW.
There really isn't a unit that synergies (hate that word) well with the warp prism, which is probably by design. The devs were probably afraid of the power of the warp-in ability and figured that was enough to make the unit stand on it's own. I understand the decision, but Stork's god micro with two shuttles full of reavers never ever slowing down, or Reach going for a bulldog on some poor terran are really cool things that don't have counterparts in SC2 protoss play yet.
To echo what others have said, everything Protoss has, outside of DTs, is bad in small numbers generally. Warp Prisms probably don't need a buff to see more drop play, they just need something worth putting into them.
I think most and foreall, Warpprisms are really really underrated. The biggest problem about them is the gap between success and failure. As long as you can micro it/them very well, you'll be fine. That's easier said than done ( not if ur name is White-Ra maybe ).
Why do I say underrated ? It's the mobile Pylon that it provides. Warpprisms maybe revolutionize the meta-game for a 3gate-robo tactic. I'm really excited to see how this goes on.
Btw, big shoutout to White-Ra, the man who delivers us his finest special tactics combined with his refined mechanics and micro. Thanks buddy, we love you
On May 03 2011 06:51 Mashmed wrote: If you upgrade your warp prism it is the fastest of the 3 supportunits and even before upgrade the Warp prism and the medivac is still faster than an upgraded overlord. Something you also failed to consider is the fact that overlords require 2 upgrades to be useful. So the warp prism is not as useless as you make it out to be.
Considering that overlord drops cost 200/200 why can't a protoss invest in an extra robotics to focus on warp prisms?
Also, the fact that the warp prism scales with the amount of gateways you have I would say is rather awesome. I would gladly swap my amount of overlords for the chance to morph my overlords into nydus networks for free.
I actually use warm prism drop's in about 75% of my PvT matches. I also USED to use it a lot in PvP to do collossus drops before 4gate became standard.
On May 03 2011 06:51 Mashmed wrote: If you upgrade your warp prism it is the fastest of the 3 supportunits and even before upgrade the Warp prism and the medivac is still faster than an upgraded overlord. Something you also failed to consider is the fact that overlords require 2 upgrades to be useful. So the warp prism is not as useless as you make it out to be.
Considering that overlord drops cost 200/200 why can't a protoss invest in an extra robotics to focus on warp prisms?
Also, the fact that the warp prism scales with the amount of gateways you have I would say is rather awesome. I would gladly swap my amount of overlords for the chance to morph my overlords into nydus networks for free.
Zerg dropships don't cost food.
So? Zerg also has the most population inefficient army, so that would just screw Zerg if they did cost food. Either way, Overlords need to be replaced if lost. Medevacs/Warp Prisms don't.
All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
SC2 robo units are nowhere near as important as SC1 robo units (across all matchups). That is, whereas the colossus is huge in PvX, reavers had more of a niche role, and observers don't eat up all the remaining robo production time. Since colossi are so crucial, it's such a sacrifice to invest so much into a fragile transport.
I'd go so far as to say that we don't see more prisms because colossi are so gamebreaking. The colossus, I think, is a problematic unit that needs to be examined. It's almost not a choice at all to get colossi, and the only thing interesting about it is that it can be hit by air attacks.
Im gonna with the fact that Protoss Tier 1 units are just bad for the kind of harassment you want to do that the pay-off is minimal. You have to catch them completely off guard. You can say the same about the other units harass also. When that warning sounds saying we are under attack zerglings, and stimmed marines are way more effective on the mineral line. Also you can scoop up speedlings and marines quick to retreat dropping zealots is more is just a suicide mission for those zealots.
The warp prism its self is fine and a pretty good unit.
TL&DR:
Its the units your dropping thats the problem unless your looking at mid to late game then yea you have really good ones.
I think you have to account for the fact that you can drop with a Warp Prism, and not have ANY units actually inside of it. An empty Warp Prism can warp in 4-#of gates of units and then proceed to morph back and leave!
Basically if you catch a Terran/Zerg dropship before it unloads it'll cost him about 500/200 (Medivac w/ 4 marauders) If you catch a Protoss dropship before it unloads... its 200/0. And no military units actually inside the warp prism.
You can also warp in 10+ units on a warp prism if needed, though if you're warping in that many units it's probably a bad thing. (Gateway units aren't that effective by themselves)
On May 03 2011 06:51 Mashmed wrote: If you upgrade your warp prism it is the fastest of the 3 supportunits and even before upgrade the Warp prism and the medivac is still faster than an upgraded overlord. Something you also failed to consider is the fact that overlords require 2 upgrades to be useful. So the warp prism is not as useless as you make it out to be.
Considering that overlord drops cost 200/200 why can't a protoss invest in an extra robotics to focus on warp prisms?
Also, the fact that the warp prism scales with the amount of gateways you have I would say is rather awesome. I would gladly swap my amount of overlords for the chance to morph my overlords into nydus networks for free.
Zerg dropships don't cost food.
So? Zerg also has the most population inefficient army, so that would just screw Zerg if they did cost food. Either way, Overlords need to be replaced if lost. Medevacs/Warp Prisms don't.
hes suggesting building several warp prisms.. its just plain stupid. The secondary purpose of the warp prism doesn't lend itself to using several together at the same time. You can build one and elevator your guys, but i cant see how building serveral would EVER make sense for a protoss.
I'm not even saying zerg dropships arent perfectly balanced. I'm saying the upgrade converts all these no food units into dropships... terran's drop ship heals... protoss' makes a pylon, why do you need many at 2 food?
On May 03 2011 13:47 oZii wrote: Im gonna with the fact that Protoss Tier 1 units are just bad for the kind of harassment you want to do that the pay-off is minimal. You have to catch them completely off guard. You can say the same about the other units harass also. When that warning sounds saying we are under attack zerglings, and stimmed marines are way more effective on the mineral line. Also you can scoop up speedlings and marines quick to retreat dropping zealots is more is just a suicide mission for those zealots.
The warp prism its self is fine and a pretty good unit.
TL&DR:
Its the units your dropping thats the problem unless your looking at mid to late game then yea you have really good ones.
This. The reason you don't see protoss drops is that their gateway units are not effective in small amounts. they attack or move too slow to kill workers quickly, unlike marines and zerglings, so they are not good for harassment. Colossus or immortal drops can work but its generally too risky given they are so expensive.
And doom dropping is not really possible as protoss because getting enough warp prisms to hold your entire army is too expensive, and they have no other uses. Unlike terran and zerg who will usually have enough medivacs and overlords anyway.
The only really useful unit to drop is the HT, but HT warp-ins were much more popular when amulet was available. The biggest use for warpprism is probably in a 3+ base situation, using it as a mobile pylon for warping in chargelots or DTs to unguarded expos.
Just watched Artosis use the Warp Prism in BW fashion on his stream. PvT, the T pushed out near his natural on Backwater Gulch (is that the right name?), sieged up 2 tanks behind his bio ball, and Artosis dropped 4 zealots on the tanks while engaging the bio with his main force. When the battle was nearing its end with Artosis winning, the T tried to escape, but Artosis had morphed his Warp Prism and warped in 4 zealots to block the remaining bio forces in.
On May 03 2011 10:40 algorithm0r wrote: Zerg player here so let me spew my bias.
Want to compare OVs to something? How about to pylons/supply depots. OV 200hp 0 armor. Supply 400hp 1 armor. Pylon 200sh/200hp 1 armor. Also OV move... that is the excuse I guess for their low HP but they are slow as shit even with the upgrade. If they didn't have the potential to drop they probably wouldn't be getting sniped all the time because they would have a higher HP. Still all these detriments don't stop Z from dropping.
How about, since all races are spending equal amounts of minerals on Pylons, Supply Depots, and Overlords, using Overlords as Drop ships is essentially free minus the cost of the two one-time upgrades versus the other races who buy each individual dropship, the production buildings, AND buy Pylons and Supply depots on top of that.
On May 03 2011 13:06 Datum wrote: One problem I've had is simply that the cheap units (the ones I feel the most comfortable loading up into the fragile Warp Prism to fly away) aren't very good for drops. Terrans can drop Marines and Marauders, which are both ranged units. Zergs can drop highly mobile zerglings, or hydras and roaches, which are ranged units. Protoss can drop mostly stalkers and zealots, however. I find that 4 zealots spend too long trying to squeeze through a mineral line to reach harvesters to do any significant damage. 4 stalkers aren't really effective without a zealot to tank damage, and 1 zealot and 3 stalkers won't really be able to do too much damage to a mineral line. That being said, there are other uses for drops, but I feel that overall, low-tier protoss units are not condusive to drops.
TLDR: Low-tier protoss units suck for drops (?)
4 zealots > 8 Zerglings in a worker line. Why the complaining? The only thing Zerg has on the Zealots is the movement speed, but Charge can help. HT/DT are also better than anything any other race has. Use them more often.
16 Zerglings in two Overlords = 4 Zealots in 1 Warp Prism in cost and supply, so that's not a fair comparison at all.... ALSO WORKERS OUTRUN ZEALOTS, BUT NOT ZERGLINGS... -.-
I don't really like the approach and conclusion of the OP, although I think the analysis is ok. I cannot help but wonder if this shouldn't be a thread in the strategy forum discussing how to overcome these problems with warp prisms or find other uses for them without assuming that a change to the game is necessary or even possible.
I used to use warp prisms quite extensively late game. In order for dropping to be viable 3 factors must be lined up.
1. Viable Transport Unit 2. Viable Drop Unit 3. Low Risk HIgh Reward
1.3.3 Protoss
1. Warp Prism - check 2. Zealot(very specifically situational)/ HT 3. 600 mineral risk for zealot, 350/450 risk for HT - conclusion - high risk
1.2.3 Protoss
1. Warp Prism - check 2. Zealot(very specifically situational)/ HT /w Amulet 3. Situational 600 mineral risk for Zealot. 200 mineral risk + optional 150/450 additional risk
With warp in psi storm ability vision from your warp prism allowed you to assess whether a 150/450 resource warp in of 3 high templar to storm a mineral line would be cost effective. Secondly if it does turn out to be cost effective, one is free to fly to the next mineral line and warp in 3 more ht dealing additional damage for your opponents poor play (poor play because all one need do is move workers out of the radius within 4 seconds of the psi storm going off)
Currently storm drop is not viable because you always risk 350/450 resources and are never guaranteed any unit kills as well as the opportunity cost of losing 44.4 seconds of the time it took to get the energy to get the storm in the first place. The higher the skill level, the less effective storm drops are because the likelihood of workers moving within 4 seconds increases.
"The Medivac can heal the drop units, increasing the cost effectiveness of the Terran units. Overlords just provide supply and can carpet-baneling drop your entire army in one swoop(<- personal insertion), and the Warp Prism can create a power field"
Yeah...with the amulet out, dropping with WP is a total waste. It's expensive, made of paper and slow as hell...I'd rather use those resources in making colossi, or having the ht's with the death ball.
I think it's pretty obvious why protoss drops are rare, and didn't think it needed explaining... even new players would know I'd think.
That said, I always thought the zealot-immortal warp-in+drop was a good build.
The main potential of warm prism is in the mobile warp-in ability. DTs and zealots are both good at that, and offer excellent harass/counter-harass for zerg to have to contend with.
Made a lengthy post about this in the past in the old Protoss discussion thread and this pretty much addresses everything I brought up then except for one point.
The nature of harass is you use it to gain small leads with little to no losses. This is why it's so important that you have high dps units that can drop in, deal damage quickly and efficiently before the enemy responds, and then get out before they can punish the drop.
This is why marine or marauder drops are so good. They have incredible dps per cost and cargo especially with stim.
The warp-prism's warp-in mechanic doesn't fit into this idea because whatever you warp-in is effectively lost. You can only retreat what the warp-prism can carry. Couple that with the fact that protoss warp-in units either have poor dps (stalkers, sentries) or damage efficiency (zealots before charge, DTs are melee and need to either chase or run to their targets) and you have incredibly costly drops that don't deal damage that well.
The primary benefit that warp-in does serve is to lower the risk of attempting to drop. You can just fly in a warp-prism and even if you lose it, that's only 200 minerals lost. Switch modes and warp-in 4 zealots and after they get back, pull back, load up, and get out. Likewise, if a Terran tries to drop and they lose their medivac loaded with 8 marines, that's 500/100 lost. Before, with warp-in storms, you could storm their mineral line only risking 200 minerals upfront. Now, you need to ferry the HTs into enemy territory so there is more risk associated with the gains of storming mineral lines.
It's crazy, that noone has mentioned Warp prism attacks that are lead by 2 sentries and 2 zealots around minute 8-9. The standard positioning for any standing army is in the natural with the exception of a few guards outside. Now along comes a warp prism, drops 2 sentries and 2 zealots and instantly starts warping in stalkers. Force field goes down on your ramp and suddenly you are screwed. Protoss can constantly reinforce IN YOUR BASE. The same base that you cannot enter due to sentries. If properly executed with your force on the outside, you have lost the game absurdly fast if you do not own medivacs/drop tech to elevator shuttle your units inside your own base. Too bad, that Zerg/Terran expand before before they get drop tech.
I think there is a rather hidden reason for Protoss not using drop play... the strategies they are currently using are doing just fine. Necessity is the mother of invention; terrans especially drop because it is key to successful harass (and terrans have to harass). Zerg are turning to drop play as a way of evening the score vs. protoss and terran as well. With the bounty of other viable options, the high apm very risky option of drop play just doesn't make that much sense.
The Medivac can heal the drop units, increasing the cost effectiveness of the Terran units. Overlords just provide supply, and the Warp Prism can create a power field. That allows you to of course, warp in more units than you can have in the actual Warp Prism, but in conjunction with Point 1, the Warp Prism can get picked off some of the time and your units will be cancelled. Which brings me to the next and final point.
This to me is the primary reason we don't see as much drops compared to terran and even zergs nowadays. Terran have no problem getting 5+ medivacs as it in most situations benefit their army as well as giving them the ability to do drops without worrying too much if you lose the drop ship. The same with zerg that always have plenty of overlords. Protoss on the other hand often gets one warp prism or two at most at the same time. This basically means if that dies it feels like a much bigger deal.
I think warp prism could use some additional ability although I'm not sure what that could be. Maybe you can have warm prism give supply (like an overlord) when they are in the power mode. That gives them a little more use before and after an drop and maybe gives a little more incentive to make more of them. I'm sure there are better ideas out there though.
If you want early game aggresion, then use the robo to get prisms out. Believe me, on scrap station its quite a powerful strat vs terran. If you want late game progression, probably the best thing considering protoss mechanics, then by all means, chrono out 6-8 colossus so you can have a deathball. Oh, and be passive \o/
I think Warp Prisms are fine, just incredibly underused for how useful they are. They don't even need to be used for drops, they're like a pylon for reinforcement, only that a pylon takes 17 seconds to build and this thing takes like 1 second to deploy -- that alone is worth 200 minerals and a bit of robo time. Try blinking up into his main then warping in some sentries to FF his ramp, for example -- can't do that with a pylon..
Throw in some cute drop play and the fact that they "carry" (sort of) more units than any other transport (8 space + 2 more for each warp gate you have) and you can plop down 30 supply worth of food almost anywhere in just 5 seconds.
I love Warp Prisms, most fun unit for me at the moment. I build at least one every game. I think as the game ages, people will use them more... a lot more.
1. Hit Points Consider the fact that you can 'drop' with _zero_ units inside a warp prism. It, logically, poses less risk than the other races, having less HP simply adds more risk.
2. Cost & Production Value I think Blizzard realizes the inherit power of lower risk drops, so to stem its abuse, made it a robo unit as you say are currently colo/immortal/obs prioritized.
4. Cargo Capacity This is just how it works. Unless you're asking for a one supply unit. And you realize that Blizzard introduced this thing called warp-in, right?
BTW, this really is more a "Protoss Harass: Compared" topic. Comparing dropships on a 1-on-1 analysis is ludicrous
There's a multitude of reasons. Someone mentioned that there's no Reaver drop equivalent. That's definitely true. Protoss drops are actually high risk, high investment. Pretty much every unit you send to drop is going to die. 4 Zealots isn't bad because it's minimal loss for potential mineral line destruction. Medivac drops are pretty low risk. Most of the time they get their money's worth even with Protoss' army standing right there. They still get their 2-3 Stalkers, a bunch of Probes, and most of the Zealots. The army strength in those 8 cargo slots is massively different, so it's a lot easier to recover all your units and do damage even with a minimal time window.
Terran will naturally gain air dominance through Viking production against the inevitable Colossus, and Queens do fairly well at staving/killing off Warp Prism. Stalkers are very exceptional at picking them off too.
Why do Protoss not utuilize drops? because the whole Protoss army resolves around colossi, immortal and templar. If you build a warp prism, you lose a lot of building time for colossi/immortals. building an extra robo just to produce 1-2 warp prism is pretty expensive.
On May 03 2011 14:08 Marinechan wrote: I just saw Artosis use Warp Prisms in a fashionable way (dropping zealots near tanks). Definitely an underused unit for the toss.
That's just like the Zealot bombs in SC1. It's not really that useful in SC2 though since most Terrans are going to have a bunch of vikings around to kill your Colossus. Seems like a situational thing.
Although I think that a pure 4 zealot drop will do minimal damage since workers just run away, a 3 zealot + sentry drop could be quite effective, since it could save two forcefields to block workers into the mineral line, then have the three zealots go to work on the workers.
Additionally, one of the main aspects of the marauder drop is its ability to snipe buildings. I think that the protoss equivalent of this could be the immortal drop, with a slightly higher price (500/200 for terran), (700/200) for protoss. This higher cost can be easily justified with the superior fire power and durability of immortals over marauders. However I suspect that with the current warp-gate based meta-game for protoss, robo-heavy drops such as this will not be seen for some time.
On May 03 2011 17:03 CortoMontez wrote: Although I think that a pure 4 zealot drop will do minimal damage since workers just run away, a 3 zealot + sentry drop could be quite effective, since it could save two forcefields to block workers into the mineral line, then have the three zealots go to work on the workers.
Additionally, one of the main aspects of the marauder drop is its ability to snipe buildings. I think that the protoss equivalent of this could be the immortal drop, with a slightly higher price (500/200 for terran), (700/200) for protoss. This higher cost can be easily justified with the superior fire power and durability of immortals over marauders. However I suspect that with the current warp-gate based meta-game for protoss, robo-heavy drops such as this will not be seen for some time.
Yes, Immortal drops are superior to Marauder drops. That's why we see Immortal drops constantly, but no one ever drops Marauders. Ever.
2 Immortals do more DPS than 4 marauders without stim, but who doesn't use stim? 4 marauders with stim do significantly more DPS than 2 immortals, so saying Immortals have "higher firepower" is laughable.
On May 03 2011 17:03 CortoMontez wrote: Although I think that a pure 4 zealot drop will do minimal damage since workers just run away, a 3 zealot + sentry drop could be quite effective, since it could save two forcefields to block workers into the mineral line, then have the three zealots go to work on the workers.
Additionally, one of the main aspects of the marauder drop is its ability to snipe buildings. I think that the protoss equivalent of this could be the immortal drop, with a slightly higher price (500/200 for terran), (700/200) for protoss. This higher cost can be easily justified with the superior fire power and durability of immortals over marauders. However I suspect that with the current warp-gate based meta-game for protoss, robo-heavy drops such as this will not be seen for some time.
Two Immortals have 2x33dps = 66dps, while 4x stimmed marauders have 4x20dps = 80 dps. In addition, the marauders can stim-kite a lot of units and are built from barracks, while Immortals are built from the robotics facility, which clashes with your Colossi building...
(The marauders are also faster moving while stimmed and have longer range, so they will be able to start attacking faster than the immortal...)
Protoss drops are rare because they're not really needed. Up to this point the most effective strategy in every matchup is to build up a big ball of units with colossus and attack. Necessity bournes inovation, and there's no necessity for extra harass at the current time. The deathball style is slowly being figured out by the different races, and as it does, protoss will soon find that warp prisms are just as good if not better than other races' drops.
With the speed upgrade, the warp prism is by far the fastest drop ship in the game, costs no gas, and doesn't give you supply. Sure zerg's 100 mineral overlord seems convenient to drop with, but you can't just lose the overlord and say, "oh well, my drop didn't work", you have to rebuild it immediately or get supply blocked (if you aren't already). Gas is a limiting factor for terrans who have to manage between vikings, medivacs, tanks/marauders, etc. Since protoss is inherently very gas heavy, they usually need a mineral dump, which the warp prism provides.
So, as I said, yes, they're not used allot, mostly because they're not needed. I don't really think you could make a case for it being a "bad" dropship, but given the choice between a dropship and 1/2 a colossus, almost every protoss right now will chose the 1/2 a colossus. As time goes on we'll see more protoss drops as each race finds it's own way to fight the deathball.
PvZ revolves around the Protoss deathball. Sacrificing units as Protoss to keep the Zerg economy down is pretty much always a bad idea.
In PvT the Terran pretty much always gets a lot of marines and Vikings as well =>impossible to drop.
If you sacrifice minerals to build warp-prism in PvP early game, you will get pushed and lose the game. In the late game, if you sacrifice robotics buildtime to produce warp-prism instead of colossi you will lose the game as well.
The only situation where Warp-prisms are decent are situations where the Protoss was already ten times ahead and wanted to end the game quicker (ie white-ra vs MC PvP).
I disagree entirely with the OP. For me the only reason Protoss players aren't using Warp Prisms to drop is that the metagame hasn't developed to a point where they NEED to drop, so they don't bother. When you look at the Warp Prism itself there's really no reason to not use them. At 3.375 it's by far the fastest dropship (it's not a coincidence that they're 0.01 faster than stimmed Marines), and allows for the warp in of anything anywhere.
And as for Protoss units working best in large numbers, need I remind everyone how obnoxious just a few Zealots in a mineral line are?
warping in units to harass: this could be from 4 zealots to 15 zealots or other wg units, whatever the radius can fit. to use up the whole radius is a huge investment and it could be used very situationally. such as huge distraction to pull the enemy's army to defend so that you can set up for better position. any DT or HT harass can be done by just loading them in. Any units being warp-ed in at most times will be taken care of. for how much they cost, they will do insufficient damage unless it's 8 DT's mopping down everything insight-key tech buildings, 1 hit probes. (this can be done with just 2 prisms also, and still cost-inefficient in more likely situations).
What will battery shield-prism do? i think it can make certain combo of units more rich in synergy and more robust. 2 archons could be dropped and with shield backing them on, they can handle hand full of units. it can also be used in battle fields where it can regenerate shield on the spot, it'll also motivate the usage of HT+Prism play more. make stalkers more robust and more dynamic with blink and charging shield.
overall, i think it'll make the protoss "flow" better than warp prism because protoss already have pylons.
note: when charging shield, unit cannot move. the shield battery has energy and it depletes quickly when used with multiple units. shield battery in bw was well balanced, imo.
for any mass attack on island/off base (situational), there is recall. or just crap load of prisms. (i assume they removed arbitor-multi-recall because of warp prisms)
Why Do People Type Like This It Looks Really Stupid. OT: Warp Prism may not be as good as Terran or Zerg drops BUT you can throw alot of people off-guard by doing it since people dont expect it to happen by a toss
Overlords cost 100, but you have to account for the research time and research cost aswell. Zerg drop costs 200/200 and takes a long time to upgrade, then you need overlord speed which is 100/100. Also you need lair so thats another 150/100.
colossi walk up cliffs, stalker blink up, a probe that puts pylons near the enemy base is nearly as useful as a warpprism, its not that the protoss is unable to drop, its more that he has many ways around it i guess.
the warpprism has the greatest potential if you just focus on dropping, because you can warp in more stuff to support the drop, ofc its risky, but 2 medivacs arent free either (almost a colossus).
On May 03 2011 17:25 grudgeStar wrote: Overlords cost 100, but you have to account for the research time and research cost aswell. Zerg drop costs 200/200 and takes a long time to upgrade, then you need overlord speed which is 100/100. Also you need lair so thats another 150/100.
Zerg always gets lair, Zerg always gets overlord speed, Zerg always gets overlord. Unless they want to do it faster and all-in, Zerg only has to invest 200/200 which is not that big of a deal considering that Zerg pretty much always has a better economy than P/T.
I think part of the reason we dont see warp prism play is because of the structure they are built from. How often do you see a Protoss who isn't spam producing Colossus. "Well you can get it be4 the colossus" but thats when the Toss is making his observer(s).
But i think the biggest reason = the fact that protoss units are extremely weak in low numbers excluding circumstances in which force fields can be used. Dropping 4 zealots on a mineral line is VERY unlikely to make itself worth the costs, whereas 8 marines can kill an entire probe line no problem and will always be cost efficient if nothing else.
The simple fact is that dropping as a Protoss requires you to specifically go out of your way, isn't as strong a drop, and takes more away from your army than for the other races.
It isn't useless, but Protoss are by far the weakest race in the dropping department, and the units you would otherwise drop are nearly always better off with your main army. Even a 4x chargelot drop with +3 weapons is only going to kill 4-5 SCVs at most, even if left unchecked for a couple seconds before the opponent notices.
8 stimmed marines with 1 or 2 weapon upgrades will get a lot more kills than than in a few seconds, and they can take on a lot more of the opposing army that comes to defend than the zealots can.
Slow, built like a paper airplane and costs a ton of minerals and gas plus we have warp gates and DTs. Unit is just a waste of space like many protoss units are IMO. Carrier is like that too. costs too much, too slow, etc so it's just not used much.
On May 03 2011 17:25 grudgeStar wrote: Overlords cost 100, but you have to account for the research time and research cost aswell. Zerg drop costs 200/200 and takes a long time to upgrade, then you need overlord speed which is 100/100. Also you need lair so thats another 150/100.
I think this is an absurd comparison. What Zerg doesn't want a Lair? So that cost is irrelevant. Zerg drop research effects all OL so it's research cost is negligible as you approach more & mass drops. OL speed is a necessity for scouting so there again cost would be incurred drop or not.
As said before, hit point, move speed or secondary use isnt that important. The first thing is the robotic (making one warp prism or two is alright, but preparing a doomdrop will seriously hinder your army strength), but the main problem is the structure of protoss army: T1 provide meatshield, anti-air and space control, higher tech provides high damages (immortals, void rays, DT) and AoE (HT, colossi), wheras, for example, terran's T1 provide the guns and higher techs provide long range, heal, space control (through range, PDD or even HSM).
Actually, on a semi-unrelated note, the more I think about it, the more I see how terrans can harass mineral lines with pretty much everything (not whine or balance, just what I feel). Marines kill probes fast, marauders murders tech, ghosts actually kill workers pretty fast, can EMP a command center or sniper queen, hellions gonna hell, thor drops are thor drops, Banshee are banshees, ravens are a bit week for harass but it only cost energy, vickings can land (through it's a bit weak, I think it was kind of designed for that purpose), and I think a double tank drop could exploit hasardous building placement while decimating a well saturated mineral line.
i find the warp prism to be a great unit, but the fact is that it doesn't really have anything good to drop. dt harassment is great, but personally i find zealot and ht drops to be extremely underwhelming (compare these to banelings/hellions/marines/marauders). for these tactics to do any decent damage at all, your opponent basically has to be paying no attention and leave his workers to sit and die in storms or to slow melee units.
i really don't think the robo build time has anything to do with it, there is plenty of time while the robo bay isn't done or with another robo facility to make a warp prism. drops just aren't all that damaging so the warp prism is pretty much relegated to being a mobile dt warpin pylon (not that theres anything unfair about this, please don't take my post as a balance complaint).
oh, and it is worth mentioning that the best drop unit (dt) and the warp prism come from different tech paths, whereas medivacs and lair are in the normal tech trees for their respective races.
On May 03 2011 17:25 grudgeStar wrote: Overlords cost 100, but you have to account for the research time and research cost aswell. Zerg drop costs 200/200 and takes a long time to upgrade, then you need overlord speed which is 100/100. Also you need lair so thats another 150/100.
I think this is an absurd comparison. What Zerg doesn't want a Lair? So that cost is irrelevant. Zerg drop research effects all OL so it's research cost is negligible as you approach more & mass drops. OL speed is a necessity for scouting so there again cost would be incurred drop or not.
I wasn't saying that Zerg drops are worse then Protoss drops... I'm saying that you can't just say that because you have overlords you can drop... getting drop and using it correctly is difficult, and the timing where you want to get drop research is a time where you are really weak as a zerg player. In the OP, he's basically saying that 100 minerals is what it costs to drop as Zerg, and that's only thing that is absurd.
An interesting use of the Warp Prism would be to use it to hide tech.
ie: Load up a probe, fly to an island/other desolate place, create energy field, drop your (for eg) dark shrine, and evacuate, use warp prism to warp in a DT straight into the main, and bait the army out the front of the nat/3rd with your main army.
Of course, the timing on this would be MUCH later than desired, however a single un-scouted DT can pay for itself pretty quickly.
Same premise can be used for stargates, with OK success too... The problem is you have to tech to Robo first. This could also cause your opponent to mis-read you though.
Every point in the OP except part of point 2 is wrong. The reason Warp Prisms are rare are because they are built at the same building as Collosus. Fact of the matter is that Warp Prisms and Observers are FANTASTIC units. They just aren't as fantastic as Collosi.
Unlike the zerg/terran drop options, warp prisms have a bit of a learning curve for players to get used to. I've been utilizing warp prisms as the central unit behind all of my strategies for a long while (replays w/ fancy warp prism micro dating back to late November), and the success rate is surprisingly high (mid-level master protoss). I recently opened up my stream to showcase my laddering, which I always open with warp prisms if I can get to that stage in the game safely. Here are some of the uses of warp prisms in each of the matchups:
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 +
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.
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.
Personally I feel like warp prism play will become more viable in the near future. I think as long as blizzard makes even a slight buff it could explode in popularity like hallucination.
I remember a discussion in the State of the Game about protoss being more inventive and using all sorts of drops and stuff, and I remember Tyler and INcontoL saying something like "currently deathballs do well enough so we don't really need to be that inventive." - my point is, Zerg didn't use drop much back in the day, now enter deathball, Zerg players had to evolve and try new things in order to deal with the deathball. 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.
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.
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 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!
On May 03 2011 19:37 Natengall wrote: Informative stuff
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
I think, llike others said, the problem with the Warpprism is, that its not (really) usefull to get more then 1 oder 2. Zerg got Ovis anyways, and the more Medivacs T has the stronger his army is. Its not the same with Prisms. 1 is a good thing for warpin, but the warpin doesnt get stronger when i have like 5 of them.
Harrass styles are inherritely risky. Whilst staying on 3 bases without harrass isn't.
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.
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.
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.
warp prisms are rarely used because of warpgates and pylons; i also dont think you can compare them with the drop techs of the other races but with nydus due to their function
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
For PvZ and PvT you have the option of skipping the colossus and get like 5-6 gates and a twilight council instead with 1-2 forges (2base that is, maybe aiming to take a third). I still think you can afford the robo since it's only 100 gas, and then use it for [u]support[u]. Observers are always useful for scouting and such, even more so if you want to warp prism drop as it can be used like terran use their scans before sending in the medivac. The immortals are of course also good for defending timings or if you need extra firepower for some reason. The problem I see comes with getting the support bay and then warp prism speed since it's expensive. Then you might as well have gotten colossi instead with the range upgrade.
Warpprism is a great unit vs Z you can do a 9 gate 1 base build and just spam zealot and sentries taking position near their ramp spamming FF up hill meanwhile a few units roll his main. You have to open up with a forge for +1 attack to slow down the Z FE or make them build their FE somewhere besides their natural.
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.
Another thing to think about is what does the protoss actually drop? The only realistic choices are Immortals and/or colossus cause gateway units warp in.
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.
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
My favorite uses of warp prisms is 3 zealots and 1 sentry. You can trap the workers before they run and get quite a few kills. It helps to also keep the main army distracted in the front.
Of course high templar storm drops are always nice vs T and Z. Typically dont have storm vs protoss.
I have seen a couple Colo drops on workers but have not done one in awhile.
Warp prisms are nice to help snipe tanks also. w/Immortals
I think people are over thinking the issues. I'd say the warp prism just needs a better turning speed and shorter transformation animation (its quite long) and it'd be good to go (or even too strong).
The reason you don't see more warp prisms is just because of colossi and the fact that Protoss don't have a whole lot of reason to harass.
Been trying them out yesterday because of this thread and they are just so paper thin that it's such a risky investment delaying colossus/immortals/obs you could have made instead. However since they are still really rare a few of the games people were so surprised that it more or less won the game on the spot.
I was watching artosis stream. He was up against a terran and did so wicked cool things with warp prisms. while the terran was going into his base with sieged up tanks he dropped zealots right on the tanks allowing him to engage the army at the entrence of his base as well as weakly flanking his opponent. I found this required to be very concentrated. Im guessing we dont see this because majority of players dont like to act on impulse far from what they had in mind. It is only useful in the right situation, if you dont have a warp prism its too late to make the right plan work. I am definitely seeing an increase in warp prism use though.
I think one of the main problems is that the upgrade for the warp prism, which makes it super fast is on the robotics bay. Now one of the best ways to use drops for protoss is the double forge with just gateways in PvT.
Now as a protoss i can afford to seperate my army a bit more as i dont have to protect collosus and so drop become viable but to make them more viable i need to research the speed upgrade, so now i have to build a robotics bay 200/200 and then upgrade which i believe is 100/100.
So not only do i have to go down a tech path that i dont particulary need, that building will also trigger mass vikings from a terran opponent which basically nulifies the drops.
My solution would be to make the drop an upgrade from the cybernetics core so that protoss doesnt have to go collosus and drops to make an efficient tech path.
I don't agree with the point that there is not enough space in Warp Prisms. that's what you have the warp-in-ability for.
Another point though, that is worthwile mentioning, is that the WP doesn't have any armor but is labeled as armored never the less. Thus it takes extra damage from vikings which makes it much more vulnerable.
a warp prism can carry alot of units with the warp in ability. u can pick up 4 zealots or stalkers and warp in additional units and *bumm* u have a strong little force in the middle of the enemy base. Grubby showed a good usage during one stream session.
And what does a warp prysm have that a medivac doesn't?
It has a SPEED UPGRADE... that's right a SPEED UPGRADE. With their speed upgrade they are extremely quick and a lot quicker than medivacs, which easily compensates for the one less armour and 10 less hp points compared to a medivac.
I think the reason protoss don't use warp prysms is due to protosses main army potential composition being the most powerful of the 3 races and requires the least amount of micro. Beating a 200/200 army of zealot, stalker, sentry and colosus as terran requires so much micro to survive from the aoe of the colosus and the damage the zealots and the forcefields from the sentries. It gives terran a much higher skill cap overall but at the same time makes terran extremely hard to play macro games at the lower leagues.
When protoss start using the warp prysm I think the race will get nerfed by blizz BIG TIME just like terran got nerfed not long after the game was released.
AND no I don't think the game is Imbalanced I just think between the different skill brackets terran is much harder to play when the players skill level is low.
I don't think Protoss drops will ever be very powerful because there is nothing good to drop. Loading them with HT's with energy or Colossus (500 minerals and 100 gas for 8 rines and 1 medivac vs 500 minerals and 200 gas for Colossus + Warp Prism and guess which kills workers faster?) is risking too many resources, and those are the only units that can really take out workers or buildings quick, which is usually the objective with drops.
Marines with stim (or even Marauders with stim) on the otherhand with their ridiculous DPS are cheap and low tech, and eat workers alive. As do Hellions. So they are great to drop. The best Protoss can really do is Zealots and DT's, both of which are vastly inferior to Marines and Hellions.
Furthermore, Terran needs Medivacs for healing 1st, so they have the unit necessary to drop even if they didn't plan drops. Thus the availability of drops becomes much easier. To a lesser extent, the same could be said for Zerg already having Overlords (though they require upgrades). Warp Prisms are really only used for one thing, drops, since pylons can do their other job (creating power fields) cheaper and without cutting into valuable robo time.
In fact the Protoss race doesn't have harrassment worker killers in general. In addition to Marines and Hellions, Terran also Banshees which eat workers. Compare them to Void Rays that take forever to kill worker (VR's are more building killers).
You just don't get much out of drops with Protoss, still I use them frequently just to keep Terran players on their toes, but I long for a cheap, high DPS unit.
One thing I thought about is to use a warp prism to hide a dark shrine (this being the only building that toss has that doesnt need power to be useful)
Although it wouldnt be all that great, I still think it would be cool to load up a probe and go drop a dark shrine in some obscure corner of the map, no pylon needed, dont even need power to finish construction.
On May 03 2011 23:45 Tumor wrote: a warp prism can carry alot of units with the warp in ability. u can pick up 4 zealots or stalkers and warp in additional units and *bumm* u have a strong little force in the middle of the enemy base. Grubby showed a good usage during one stream session.
and when the enemy comes back with his main force you lose all the warp in units without beeing able to rescue them.
terrans can pick up their drop pretty easily, they can do alot of dmg and come out unharmed. the medivacs heal the smaller dmg the "drop protection" forces or static defenses do and if the enemy comes up with a huge force, they just leave the base.
zerg even has the same option, but considering that zerg units are generally just throw away units ,it's pointless. but they've the option to do so. they'll have more than just 2 dropships anyways...
Now for protoss, once you warp in units, you will be A) unable to rescue these units, they're suicidal. you cant rescue more than your warp prism carries. B) you will be even more vulnerable for an attack, not only did you split up your forces, but you even used your damn warp in for some suicide attack.
imho the warp prism is just good for one thing, and that is dark templar/high templar drops. and that is not even the strength of the warp prism, it's the dark/high templars strength to be devastating even if you drop just one of them...
IMO if the speed research was more accessible, or better yet already researched, that alone could encourage a lot more Protoss to drop. Just a thought.
I use warp prism's regularly though. If you bring it with your army and use it as a proxy pylon, it's incredibly useful - especially against Zerg's.
On May 03 2011 23:55 Ashby wrote: And what does a warp prysm have that a medivac doesn't?
It has a SPEED UPGRADE... that's right a SPEED UPGRADE. With their speed upgrade they are extremely quick and a lot quicker than medivacs, which easily compensates for the one less armour and 10 less hp points compared to a medivac.
I think the reason protoss don't use warp prysms is due to protosses main army potential composition being the most powerful of the 3 races and requires the least amount of micro. Beating a 200/200 army of zealot, stalker, sentry and colosus as terran requires so much micro to survive from the aoe of the colosus and the damage the zealots and the forcefields from the sentries. It gives terran a much higher skill cap overall but at the same time makes terran extremely hard to play macro games at the lower leagues.
When protoss start using the warp prysm I think the race will get nerfed by blizz BIG TIME just like terran got nerfed not long after the game was released.
AND no I don't think the game is Imbalanced I just think between the different skill brackets terran is much harder to play when the players skill level is low.
I think a point that wasn't raised in the OP (and collected comments) yet is the fact that - unlike the Overlord drops and to a small extent the Medivac - a Warp Prism isn't just a Dropship. Load it with 3 zealots 1 probe, send the Zealots to harass the mineral line and you can feel free to warp in more units. Or build Cannons below the Warp Prism to protect it. Medivacs can heal, but they can't throw down auto turrets. I've yet to see anybody actually doing this (pack a probe or two into a warp prism to protect the warp prism with cannons once it's stationary) but one day....!
protoss lacks the units that are effective for harass,
HTs were pretty good, but are not as useful as before the nerf DTs are viable if your opponent is bad and doesn't build turrets
in the end going for (early/mid) drops is pretty all-in as Protoss.
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.
we just don't have the Units to use Dropharass to full potential, meaning getting free damage. Most times you will lose units, which is never good.
Thats why Terran drops are so good, they have insane dps but also great mobility so you don't lose anything if your playing smart.
if your opponent has similar army strengh and you go for drop harass it just doesn't work. If your opponent retreats and let himself contain, of course it effectiv , but if he is smart he will just push you, and cause you lack quite some fightsupply in your base you will die.
I dont buy this idea that the warprism is super fragile and thats why protoss dont use drops. The whole point of a drop is to harass and to get out of there before the units come. Therefore speed is more important than actual hitpoints and the warprism is the fastest of the three dropships. (and 10hp less is not a big deal).
I think the real reason some toss dont use warprisms is because they are too comfortable turtling to the late game. So it doesn't occur to them that they should be attacking their opponent while they're building their death ball. Good protoss will do both and its extremely hard to deal with.
On May 03 2011 23:55 Ashby wrote: And what does a warp prysm have that a medivac doesn't?
It has a SPEED UPGRADE... that's right a SPEED UPGRADE. With their speed upgrade they are extremely quick and a lot quicker than medivacs, which easily compensates for the one less armour and 10 less hp points compared to a medivac.
I think the reason protoss don't use warp prysms is due to protosses main army potential composition being the most powerful of the 3 races and requires the least amount of micro. Beating a 200/200 army of zealot, stalker, sentry and colosus as terran requires so much micro to survive from the aoe of the colosus and the damage the zealots and the forcefields from the sentries. It gives terran a much higher skill cap overall but at the same time makes terran extremely hard to play macro games at the lower leagues.
When protoss start using the warp prysm I think the race will get nerfed by blizz BIG TIME just like terran got nerfed not long after the game was released.
AND no I don't think the game is Imbalanced I just think between the different skill brackets terran is much harder to play when the players skill level is low.
That just isnt true, the protoss army requires alot of micro. A terran army and even a zerg army copes much better with just 1a than protoss. As for the reason i dont use warp prism, its because of its HP. That said, i dont think zerg have as good drop system as terran either. Four marauders in a medivac with stim is very good, it can be devastating (check out Kas or Demuslim style TvP). Zerg or Protoss just dont have this. Im not complaining its just a unique part of the race.
I think an important aspect of warp prism that other transports don't have is that it can aslo be used to just re-enforce your army during a push instead of building forward pylons.
As for drops, I think zealots are a good unit to drop. They're just a pain to deal with because it takes a bit to kill them. Once they start getting upgradea they get better.
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: 2. Cost & Production Value
The Warp Prism costs 200 Minerals, not exactly cheap. Medivacs cost 100/100 and Overlords cost just 100, with the research to be able to drop costing 200/200, which is only a one time cost, so the more drops you use the more cost efficient the research becomes. However, where are these units made? Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game. Overlords from Larvae of course and are staple. However, the Warp Prism is made from the Robotics, taking away crucial time that an Immortal or Colossi could be building at. My point is that from the Protoss' perspective, making a Warp Prism even to start with is a choice that might come back and bite them later in the game.
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.
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: 3. Secondary Effect
The Medivac can heal the drop units, increasing the cost effectiveness of the Terran units. Overlords just provide supply, and the Warp Prism can create a power field. That allows you to of course, warp in more units than you can have in the actual Warp Prism, but in conjunction with Point 1, the Warp Prism can get picked off some of the time and your units will be cancelled. Which brings me to the next and final point.
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.
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote: 4. Cargo Capacity
All three cargo transports can carry a maximum of 8 supply worth of units. However, Protoss does not have a 1 supply unit other than the Probe. At most, our drops would consist of 4 Zealots, 4 Stalkers or a mix of both. Sure, the argument would be "Just make more Prisms", but take into consideration Point 2 and how that takes time from the Robotics Facility. Medivacs can carry 8 Marines, a scary drop, and Overlords can carry 8 Zerglings. The ability to only drop 4 units at a time appeals even less to the Protoss player and would once again, refrain from dropping.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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.
The major reasons the warp prism isn't used are: - there are no good units you can drop really. Zealot / stalker drops are hardly useful and HT drops take too much tech. - the warp prism takes quite some time to build from a building that is usually making colossi instead - the same units that counter drop harass are just needed against protoss in general. T plays MMM and viking usually which make dropping very hard, zerg has queens and hydra's/corruptors and in the mirror there are blink stalkers or there is no time to make a warp prism.
On May 04 2011 03:36 Carthage wrote: 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?
Because DTs are incredibly gas-intensive, generally gimmicky and unreliable, and provides no really useful tech route like the Robo does?
I have read over this whole thread and maybe read one correct response in the entire thing as to why warp prism drops are actually very useful. I'm a masters level protoss who has experimented with warp prisms quite a bit and can safely say they are very good in some situations and very useless in some others. Before I mention what those are in my experience, I will say that the single most beneficial part of a protoss drop is the effect that comes when you keep the thing alive. Your goal should not be direct economic damage, at least as protoss. Your goal is to keep them defensive and force them to make decisions they don't want to have to make. It's very similar as to how DTs work in PvT. They can't push out unless they've saved up a ton of scan or they have a raven. Even if your DT doesn't get a single kill... it has this overarching impact on the game due to its mere existence and the fact that you teched to it. A warp prism floating outside of the terran base has the same effect.
I'll turn to whiteras European dominance from a few months ago where he was placing high in literally every event. Whitera in an interview about his style indicated that he wanted to prove to people that drops weren't exclusive to just terrans and that warp prisms/drops are useful even if they don't do damage. The major difference between the protoss drop and the terran drop, is that the protoss drop has to be done with a purpose in mind. If you just fly in, dump your units out, let them run around and then fly home only impacting mining time, then you're doing it wrong. Instead, you need to drop, try to catch them off guard, pick off 1 or 2 scvs unless they react really poorly. Then you pick those units up and float to a nearby safe spot and wait. You'll notice in whitera replays he always chronoboosts an observer after the warp prism comes out and he sends it to the front of the base. He doesn't float around the main looking for tech, the warp prism drop is your scout... you get to see his units because it takes alot of firepower to bring down zealots and a stalker... you dont NEED to scout his base because you can see what he has when responding to your drop. Instead, you leave your observer out front to check for army movement or a counterattack. Alot of the times your drop will come during an actual push of theirs (less often post-stim nerf) and you will see their army return home to defend. If you end up killing several workers somehow its not uncommon for a terran to just all-in, which is an easy enough win. Just try to put yourself in their mindset.. what is your response when they have a full medivac waiting for your to leave your base? Do you leave units behind? Do you throw up cannons so you don't have to? Do you build a stargate and try to get air control, thus deviating from your plan? If you start to think of things in those terms you will realize that drops do SO much more than can be quantified by units killed or the cost of the drop to you.
Examples where Warp Prism is good: PvT in general, timing drop before stim is out particularly. Zealots are the heartiest unit you have and they are cheap. You can drop them and even if they are marauder heavy you can pick them up and float somewhere safe, keeping the drop threat alive. Stalkers are generally not a great drop, but I add one to my drop play (that I stole directly from whitera) so that my zealots cant be kited by concussive as easily. You generally drop your units off, do some damage, see what they send to defend it with. If your units won't get kills against his army, pick your guys up and fly to some empty airspace and just wait. You'll find that the prism is very easy to keep alive before they have stim, which is exactly when the first drop comes. Subsequent drops they will have stim ready, so you just make it quicker and get out quicker... just keep the warp prism alive as long as possible.
Late game PvT I thnk its pretty obvious why its good to be able to just fly anywhere and warp shit in. Pretty self explanatory.
PvZ Warp prisms are okay at best, but this is due to overlords. I've done some timings attacks that I would call "metagaming it" where i would make gateway units, 2 immortals, and a warp prism and just attack, picking up immortals that were taking fire. The attack comes before hydras were out, but I stopped doing it in favor of macro games as its pretty all-in if it fails. Nonetheless its an effective push that usually kills their expansion if not win the game right there.
Late game PvZ. If you have gotten air control via stargate play a warp prism will do fine, but honestly you probably won't have much robo downtime and its usually just as easy to warp in some dts off a pylon and walk than it is to be sneaky.
Warp prism is quite a bit weaker against zerg, but worth bringing with you on pushes if you have downtime on an early robo. The pylon power is really strong, but your drops in general will be less effective here than vs terran. On top of the above reasons, zerg can replace their workers fast so even if you DO damage, its not going to hurt quite as bad as killing a terran mule or something.
PvP. People might hate me for this, but in the current state of PvP this thing has very few uses. It's barely not terrible. Here's why. Any build you've seen this in as part of the early game in PvP has not really had anything to do with the warp prism. Whitera vs. MC was almost entirely due to luck and poor play by MC. There was nothing clever about his warp prism timing and there was nothing safe about it. In fact, it was quite unsafe based on the information he had, but MC didn't capitalize. Similarly, Tyler vs. Socke was cited earlier, but that is another bad example of a use of warp prism. The builds in PvP early game are simply too tight for a warp prism timing to work. It's very risky and a very big gamble. The best time to get one is during the robo bay warp in, but even that is risky as it delays zealots that you will need.
The single best use of the warp prism in PvP for me has been when you know that they are going for colossus and you've already gotten enough immortals to know you are way behind... there's a timing push you can do where you just drop two immortals at the feet of their colossus. Since they are so zealot heavy (they have to be to be ahead of you with colossus + range) they cant shoot the WP down and their colossus either get picked off ultra fast by the immortals or the colossus has to run and thus, do no damage. If you miss your timing here and they end up with either too many colossus or the dps to snipe your warp prism then this wont work. I've never been successful if they had more than 2 colossus at the time of my push.
Way late game PvP. Anything can happen but warp-ins generally make the warp prism an unreliable luxury at this stage of the game.
Warp Prisms have their place in the protoss arsenal for sure, but the reason they aren't seen a ton in PvT is lack of understand by protoss, in PvZ is the map control overlords provide and how resillient zerg is to drop damage, and in PvP is its risky (at least until 1.3 maybe)
I remember hearing on SOTG that their opinion was that the deathball strategy is so effective Protoss players don't really need to drop and harass like T's and Z's. Of course, I just think that a Protoss who harasses would be so scary, especially with DTs, chargelots, and warping in reinforcements.
Finally, I feel there's no need to build a warp prism when a conveniently placed and hidden pylon can accomplish just as much for a lot less, especially late game to harass expansions with a couple of zealots/DTs when opponent armies are far away (especially immobile terrans).
1. Early game problem. Units for harassment need to be relatively cheap or very good at doing high dps, preferrably with range so workers can't escape. Zealots/stalkers/sentries are generally weak when dropped. 4 Zealots probably the best bet, like WhiteRa. But still risky. 2. It's a suicide mission usually. Compounds point 1, because those units are expensive. 3. No amulet for HT. 4. Queens and vikings have insane range and are common in the matchups. Great at killing warp prisms. 5. Time taken up when you need to make colossus, observer. The factory got reduced cost... I'm thinking Robotics might benefit from a reduced cost.
I'm really hoping that HotS has a hell of a harass unit for Protoss. Where's the reaver? Zerg have banelings and mutas, T have stimmed bio and blueflame hellions. All that comes at midgame easily. Protoss only have Dark Templar and zealot warpins by that time. More expensive and more easily dealt with.
Fast warp prism is so insanely good if they had that upgrade to start it would be worth it. Otherwise lowering the cost would help the main time i want to drop is when 200 minerals seems like too much. The fact that it takes robo time is by far its biggest disadvantage. Right now its just to big of a sacrifice for something that is not guaranteed damage.
if blizzard buff sige tanks dps... and nerf cost of warp prisma that probubly agenst sige tanks will do some cool drops than you will see more of warp prisma...
i am for more drops more sige tanks more mecha less bio builds less banglings less colloss...
there is plenty of good things that this game have 2 offer than this few unites...but simply stim banglings colloss do trumendus dps....
I think it has very little to do with the warp prism, and much more to do with Protoss' style of play.
Protoss, how they are currently played, has no need to slow down other race's production/tech, they need to focus on their own.
The Protoss has the best and most effective 200/200 army, so if both players get there, the Protoss is at an advantage. They don't need to slow down others, they just need to not be slowed down themselves.
Well, it's also because the Protoss have three other harass units that don't require or even really benefit that much from a warp prism most of the time: Blink Stalkers, Dark Templar, and Phoenix.
just an opinion that 8 supply of terran units is more scary than 8 supply of protoss.
the idea that 10 less hp on a warp prism, makes it drastically easier to kill over a medivac. completely ignoring the fact that its cheaper to build.
then coming along with the point that overlord drops are a 1 time research, but adding a new robo purely for dropship production is a CHEAPER 1 time "research" for dropping.
completely breezing past the rediculous power of warp in from your dropship, meaning you effectively carry as many units as you have gates +4.
the op said he didnt want an imbalance whine but he is also clearly showing a huge protoss bias, shrouded behind "facts" that are just opinions.
I had an experience a couple days ago that I want to share with you guys. I was playing Zerg in diamond league versus this protoss player. What he did was in early-midgame, just around the time my lair was finishing, he moved a warp prism into my base near the ramp and blocked my ramp with forcefields casted by sentries in my main. My lings were all stuck below the ramp, allowing his zeals to cause major damage in my main. He kept warping in more troops too, leading to serious damage to my economy and tech.
A very effective move in my opinion. Of course, I was a bit slow to react, because so few Protoss drop!
I had an experience a couple days ago that I want to share with you guys. I was playing Zerg in diamond league versus this protoss player. What he did was in early-midgame, just around the time my lair was finishing, he moved a warp prism into my base near the ramp and blocked my ramp with forcefields casted by sentries in my main. My lings were all stuck below the ramp, allowing his zeals to cause major damage in my main. He kept warping in more troops too, leading to serious damage to my economy and tech.
I saw a VOD of a pro that did this. Can't remember who it was. It ended up being effective and won him the game, but barely. What I do, mostly, with the warp prism is drop in the corner of the main, draw units away from the front, then attack the natural (and FF the ramp). I lose the dropped in force but I roll over the nat.
I think you hit all the main points in the OP, except for this one:
The great thing about well-executed drops is that they can do even a moderate amount of damage to your opponent's economy/infrastructure, and then retreat with minimal losses. You see this most often with Terran, but good Zergs will do it too with their Roach/Hydra drops.
The problem then is that if a Protoss version of a drop means dropping 4 Zealots/Stalkers and then warping in units to the power field, that Warp Prism can only retreat with 4 Zealots/Stalkers, effectively stranding all of the units you warped in. This makes Protoss drops a lot riskier than their Terran/Zerg alternatives and you almost have to guarantee damage for it to be worth it, which is never solid play.
In the future I think we might see Protoss players cruising around with 2-3 empty warp prisms, finding a place to hit, warping in, and then using those warp prisms to get the units out as their opponent responds accordingly. Takes a bit more micro than a regular drop, but with the benefit that the units do not need to be produced before the Warp Prisms set out from your base, your WG's just have to be off cooldown.
Why do a round of warp-ins at your natural when you can do it behind your opponent's third? Especially when you can escape with most of said units while dealing economic/structural damage.
if no one hasn't mentioned this earlier... here's my opinion medivacs and overlords are essential units on one hand the medivac is absolutely essential for terran bio since they heal as we all know so terran can easily use them for something when they see an opening or simply dont want their army to stay at base and just do nothing + no mech terran drops because they dont have any gain same can be said for a protoss army with colosi why would you drop its times more efficent to use blinkstalkers and observers to do dmg the only point of a warp prism would be to warp dt's and harass and this is easily shut down because of vikings...in the other matchup zergs need to have overlords and upgrading them to actualy do something useful helps them and is quite good since hydras have good dps and if they are in overlords their slow speed is put out of the equation making them very good for drops. i don't really know why tosses dont use the prism in this matchup since it could do a ton of dmg other than overlords being everywhere spotting but if you dont loose it nothing has changed you dont need to kill 4 drones because you spent 200 minerals for prism just wait for a big fight and drop zelots or wathever most people wont notice that.So in conclusion most protosses (my opinion and including myself) dont drop since it doesn't go well with their composition or just feel scared of loosing units because of lack of micro or experience with dropping and yes players need to evolve and incorporate everything in their style like white-ra's been doing but lets not forget that he has been playing more than most of us and developing himself.
I think the most powerful argument here is the usefulness of the robo facility. Because so many compositions rely on colossus or immortal stopping production is really problematic. I think drops are just unlikely to be part of a heavy robo-unit composition play. I can see them being incorporated a lot more into heavy gateway unit/templar plays though. THose just aren't nearly as popular right now.
On May 04 2011 23:50 Shana wrote: Storm nerfed, Reaver removed and DT is so high in tech. It's not because warp prism but mainly because Toss has no good harassment unit.
I think this is mainly it. Marines and marauders kill units/workers super quickly. Zealots are slow and melee units and stalkers' dps isn't high enough to kill buildings quick. Carrying only 4 of them doesn't help either.
On May 04 2011 23:50 Shana wrote: Storm nerfed, Reaver removed and DT is so high in tech. It's not because warp prism but mainly because Toss has no good harassment unit.
I think this is mainly it. Marines and marauders kill units/workers super quickly. Zealots are slow and melee units and stalkers' dps isn't high enough to kill buildings quick. Carrying only 4 of them doesn't help either.
zealots have almost the same dps against armored as unstimmed marauders, last time i checked buildings didnt run away.
and again, every protoss poster is ignoring the warp in aspect. if your drop is unaposed (like it has to be for terran if you want to actually kill a nexus / hatch) you can warp in more to deal more damage. the way sentries work, if an expo is in another spawns main, you can actually wall the defensive army out. aspects like this get completely overlooked just because the numbers say marauders should kill buildings the fastest
Very Biased Suggestion Time: (VBST, just made that up, get @me)
Balance
Protoss
All units warped-in via a warp prism power field spawn with an additional 25 energy.
This will of course allow for high Templar reinforcements and sentries to FF a ramp if you drop into the main. Yes, this is probably way too strong, but I am biased, I believe if toned down a little bit this suggestion could be a viable one to eventually implement, however, perhaps tone down the additional 25 energy to say, 10.
On May 04 2011 23:50 Shana wrote: Storm nerfed, Reaver removed and DT is so high in tech. It's not because warp prism but mainly because Toss has no good harassment unit.
I think this is mainly it. Marines and marauders kill units/workers super quickly. Zealots are slow and melee units and stalkers' dps isn't high enough to kill buildings quick. Carrying only 4 of them doesn't help either.
zealots have almost the same dps against armored as unstimmed marauders, last time i checked buildings didnt run away.
and again, every protoss poster is ignoring the warp in aspect. if your drop is unaposed (like it has to be for terran if you want to actually kill a nexus / hatch) you can warp in more to deal more damage. the way sentries work, if an expo is in another spawns main, you can actually wall the defensive army out. aspects like this get completely overlooked just because the numbers say marauders should kill buildings the fastest
Oh, I was talking about stimmed marauders, excuse my mistake. Zealots are weak harassment units because they are melee though. You have a limited time to do a drop before the enemy reacts so if you drop Zealots, you have to basically kill the closest building to the edge of the base.
On May 04 2011 23:50 Shana wrote: Storm nerfed, Reaver removed and DT is so high in tech. It's not because warp prism but mainly because Toss has no good harassment unit.
I think this is mainly it. Marines and marauders kill units/workers super quickly. Zealots are slow and melee units and stalkers' dps isn't high enough to kill buildings quick. Carrying only 4 of them doesn't help either.
zealots have almost the same dps against armored as unstimmed marauders, last time i checked buildings didnt run away.
and again, every protoss poster is ignoring the warp in aspect. if your drop is unaposed (like it has to be for terran if you want to actually kill a nexus / hatch) you can warp in more to deal more damage. the way sentries work, if an expo is in another spawns main, you can actually wall the defensive army out. aspects like this get completely overlooked just because the numbers say marauders should kill buildings the fastest
Oh, I was talking about stimmed marauders, excuse my mistake. Zealots are weak harassment units because they are melee though. You have a limited time to do a drop before the enemy reacts so if you drop Zealots, you have to basically kill the closest building to the edge of the base.
Weak harassment units because they're melee? They've probably got the best resilience:DPS ratio of any teir one unit in the game. If they're dropped into a mineral line four Zealots can tank probably 20 or so workers .
I really have no freaking Idea why the Prism isn't used more in the Lategame... Let's say you have like 6-10 WG's - Put some Zealots/HT's in the Prism, then go into your opponents main, warp in a few Sentries and zealots and start tearing up their base while Force-Fielding the ramp - why does nobody do that?
Probably cuz Toss wins without high-skill tactics like that....
Like Tyler said; Protoss has sooo many possibilities to harrass like that (Phoenix, Blinkstalkers, Warp-In's, Prism), yet nobody does it until it's actually needed to win.
If I'd play Protoss, I'd definitely use stuff like that, cuz it's more fun, can be very effective and it's definitely a skill that's gonna be used if you want to play Toss on a high level in the hopefully not too distant future.
Weak harassment units because they're melee? They've probably got the best resilience:DPS ratio of any teir one unit in the game. If they're dropped into a mineral line four Zealots can tank probably 20 or so workers .
The power of harass is high probability of damage. Zealots are slow, there is a good chance you'll get VERY FEW worker kills with a zealot drop. There is good chance you'll lose 600 minerals dropping 4 zealots and do far less than that in damage. Sure, if they don't run awya their workers, you can decimate their mineral line, but chances are you won't. I think with the archon buff, we'll see more templar play though, and I think templar drops with storm have a high probability of doing a lot of damage.
I don' think that there is a problem with the the unit or the concept and execution of a protoss drop. 200 minerals and NO gas is pretty cheap, and it's got a cool secondary ability. I think the problem is the robo bay. It can make four units in total. Two of these units are pretty potent combat units, the third is the all but essential source of mobile detection, and the fourth is the warp prism. When you look at it like that I think it's fairly obvious why you just don't see warp prisms. 9 times out of 10 you are building something else that is essential to your battle plan. You just can't afford to build them. In this case the lack of currency has nothing to do with the physical resources in the game, but rather a lack of time.
the reason I think warp prism drops are rare is due to the fact the ground protoss splash unit (the collosus) cannot 1 hit workers. this is because the protoss units usually have a lower DPS this aplays to all ground units APART from the collosus as that is its role - to support the army with damage. thats how protoss works, you have some units (colllo, HT) dealing the damage, protected by the gateway units. for drops though, you dont care about health, you care about damage. And if the only unit role that does lots of slpash damage does not do that damage well enough to workers there is no point dropping.
I think a lot of people have good points with a lot coming down to the units. Terran have marines/marauders which are great to drop in small numbers, and zerg have banelings. That's been discussed.
But the other thing is you have to have medivacs/overlords anyway.
Terran With terran they are getting medivacs for healing regardless of drop potential, so from there dropping isn't much of an investment (unless you lose it). It's a no-brainer, which is why we see it so often.
Zerg For a small drop, say at a mineral line, you're investing 300/300 researching speed and drops which is more than a warp prism drop, but banelings can be pretty effective. The really powerful drops for zerg though are the larger drops which are more common. It's not just one overlord filled with units, there's a few. So that 300/300 is split between all the overlords you use and it becomes cheaper. It's basically 300/300 for as many drop ships as you like for the rest of the game. And it's basically 200/200 because most zergs get speed anyway for scouting. I'm not counting the cost of an overlord in that because you have to make overlords for supply anyway, and it's only a cost if you lose them. This is either baneling drops like we see in battles or doom drops, dropping an army into the opponents base. With a doom drop, a whole army is being picked up and dumped in their base, it's just not something a protoss can do. Even if they were cheap warp prisms are 2 supply and eat into army size, but that's pretty irrelevant I guess because they're not cheap.
Protoss I kind of view the ability to warp in under them as making their size bigger by however many gates you have. Except it's worse than that because you have to wait for them to warp in, and you don't have the space to take everything away again. Which means I don't really like the way they work, because you drop whats inside them and then anything you warp in is guaranteed dead, and increases the investment of a drop even more. A better change in my eyes than people have suggested is something like making it provide 10 supply. It's twice the cost of a pylon, and if you're stupid with it you can still lose it. But if you do a drop and get out of there, it's still providing supply and worst come to worst after that it powers some building and can only be taken down by anti-air. And I wouldn't be thinking "I wish I'd spent that robotics time making another colossus."
So I don't think it's particularly that protoss units just aren't good for dropping. If you dropped a bunch of zealots at expansions late game it's easy to imagine that being effective. But you have neither of the luxuries zerg and terran have with their drops; you don't already have them for another purpose and you can't do enormous drops for the rest of the game with that single investment.
So imagine even if each race's units are as effective as each other when dropped. Each warp prism you make is an investment that has to pay off or you're behind. When a terran makes no additional investment, and a zerg gets a huge Economy of Scale from a single investment.
There's a dangerous state of mind that if pro players aren't doing it or if it isn't standard you shouldn't. Who says that you can't make an additional Robotics Facility for Warp Prism production, sure it will cost you 200/100 but you will almost always get that money back through successful drops. In my opinion you cannot think of the Warp Prism as just a unit that is capable of drops, it can essentialy create units around the map. Combine this with the big attack that will often happen in games will cause huge damage to your opponent, run them around with it, you never have to return to base.
When leaving your base with one, you don't even have to have units in it. Whereas with Terran/Zerg you do. That means that if it's scouted and killed then you're only losing the cost of the Warp Prism and not the units that would normally be inside.
This is from a zerg perspective so if it's utterly stupid then disregard it.
On May 05 2011 02:51 Sicky wrote: There's a dangerous state of mind that if pro players aren't doing it or if it isn't standard you shouldn't. Who says that you can't make an additional Robotics Facility for Warp Prism production, sure it will cost you 200/100 but you will almost always get that money back through successful drops. In my opinion you cannot think of the Warp Prism as just a unit that is capable of drops, it can essentialy create units around the map. Combine this with the big attack that will often happen in games will cause huge damage to your opponent, run them around with it, you never have to return to base.
When leaving your base with one, you don't even have to have units in it. Whereas with Terran/Zerg you do. That means that if it's scouted and killed then you're only losing the cost of the Warp Prism and not the units that would normally be inside.
This is from a zerg perspective so if it's utterly stupid then disregard it.
Actually, I agree with this too.
If you are going AdelScott's or Tyler's mass Gateway style (particularly against Terran), investing in the mid-late game on a Robo Facility just for Warp Prisms and Observers seems like a very smart idea. 200/100 is nothing, and Warp Prisms are only 200 minerals. Because the mass Gateway style relies on getting good upgrades for your Gateway units, you can get Chargelots fairly quickly and those are the real money earning harassment units when in Prisms.
I think White-Ra shows us the best way to use the warp prism. Distract the enemy army and drop zealots. Even if you don't kill many workers, the opponent is still losing a lot of mining time, and you can focus depos or addons. Also if you drop the zealots in the middle of a fight, many players would not even notice that somethin is killing their workers.
Sure, Warp Prisms are squishy and can't carry much, but they have their innate strengths, such as being a scout that decides what area is vulnerable before investing into units. I see the cargohold is just a way of saving some units when defenders arrive.
It's hard to justify early(1base) drop play against anything, but it surely has it's late game uses. Drops seem to be only good when contained into a position by an immobile army, or when the game's well into the later stages and the opposing guy has his defenses spread among multiple bases.
Main thing I see happening with prisms is just using them to make your army more mobile.
ie carrying around HTs in them since theyre slow as hell and otherwise you have to babysit them and it would slow your advance. And cool micro on low hp units after theyve unloaded for the engage.
Dropwise early game at least toss units arent the best worker killers. Slow zealots and not the best at killing workers Stalkers.
On May 04 2011 23:50 Shana wrote: Storm nerfed, Reaver removed and DT is so high in tech. It's not because warp prism but mainly because Toss has no good harassment unit.
I think this is mainly it. Marines and marauders kill units/workers super quickly. Zealots are slow and melee units and stalkers' dps isn't high enough to kill buildings quick. Carrying only 4 of them doesn't help either.
zealots have almost the same dps against armored as unstimmed marauders, last time i checked buildings didnt run away.
You are right when it comes to un-upgraded units.
If you factor in +3 weapon upgrades and stim and compare you get: zealot 8+3-1*2/1,2 = 16,67 dps Marauder 20+6-1/1 = 25 dps. (-1 for building armor)
A 50% advantage to the Marauder, in addition it can start attacking sooner since it has 6 range.
For me it's definitely the problem of the robotics production time. I could squeeze in extra 200 minerals, but my robotics just NEVER seizes to produce observers/colossi/immortals. Each and every time until I reach lategame my robo-production-time is better used for something else.
Only on 2nd place comes the problem that toss actually has very little that is worth dropping. Immortal drops and 4 zealot drops are nothing compared to 4 marine/2 marauder and such. Also zealots have no range, which makes picking up stuff even less viable. Again, only in lategame DT and HT drops can be considered.
Taking away the reaver and replacing it with a unit that isn't really suited for drop-play hurt toss a lot.
Well, thewarp prism allows for warp in play via the phase mode. So doesn't that sort of keep it useful? I mean, we know of kiwikakkis double immortal drop with the warp in ability. I think the warp prism has some pretty awesome uses but players are just neglecting it. We'll see how it evloves I guess soon ^^
On May 03 2011 06:49 FreezerJumps wrote: Transport capacity is based on unit size, not supply. 8 lings, 8 marines, 4 zealots, 2 immortals, etc. I'm pretty sure colossi and thors aren't 8 supply.
I think the main problem is that the warp prism doesn't really have a passive ability, as medivacs and overlords do. As such, your warp prism is only useful when you're paying direct attention to it.
Neither Overlords nor Medivacs can "create units" below them.
On May 03 2011 06:46 NicolBolas wrote: All of these points could be used against the Shuttle from SC1.
Really, the only reason you don't see more Prism usage is because of the lack of a droppable unit that can do serious damage. There's no equivalent to a Reaver (the primary thing people carried in Shuttles). Immortal drops would be strong at picking off tech structures quickly, but that's about it. Storm drops still work, but that's pretty late-game stuff.
I need to echo this point which OP didn't touch on. Also, colossi drops are not only not as effective as you would think, but also put the toss at a much larger risk because the Colossus is very much the center of the Protoss army. The risk/reward ratio compared to reaver drops in SC1 is skewed for the worse.
Sure the Gateway units cant do Stim attacks on a Nexus or Banelings bomb a mineral line, but that doesnt mean a few Chargelots or Stalkers cant do serious damage and be annoying enough to cause an opponent to pull a large part of his army back. Especially against Terrans this would be useful and the ability to warp in units is rather powerful. Killing a terrans addons on the production facilities slows him down soooo much and sniping the one Roach Warren a Zerg has can easily screw up their army composition for a minute or two after an engagement.
Just use it like this: 1. Engage the enemies army and kill half their stuff. 2. While you are losing some units you warp in some gateway units in your opponents base to harrass and kill production facilities (tech building for Zerg, addons for Terrans).
On May 03 2011 06:51 Mashmed wrote: If you upgrade your warp prism it is the fastest of the 3 supportunits and even before upgrade the Warp prism and the medivac is still faster than an upgraded overlord. Something you also failed to consider is the fact that overlords require 2 upgrades to be useful. So the warp prism is not as useless as you make it out to be.
Considering that overlord drops cost 200/200 why can't a protoss invest in an extra robotics to focus on warp prisms?
Also, the fact that the warp prism scales with the amount of gateways you have I would say is rather awesome. I would gladly swap my amount of overlords for the chance to morph my overlords into nydus networks for free.
Obviously because "its too expensive" to have a spare Robotics for Warp Prisms and Observers ... said in the same whiney voice we always hear from Zerg.
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The whole point is that arguments about "X, Y, Z being too expensive" only apply when it comes to precisely timed and rushed game plans. Once the first engagement is over a certain "random element" enters the gameplay because you can never predict how much stuff you have left over after the battle and then you need to "improvise" instead of following the cooking recipe. Thats when the time for these "too expensive techs" has come.
Zerg sometimes complain about not having a lot of options, but ignoring drops, Nydus Networks and burrow tech is a sign of not using everything in the arsenal. The same applies to Protoss and Warp Prisms and Motherships.
what they could maybe add or in other words to fusion is the observer and warp-prism upgrade! I mean if Blizz would combine these 2 Upgrades to one they'd be used more often in my humble opinion! They could increase a bit the costs as if u'd do one upgrade like obs speed is 100/100 and prism speed aswel , i guess( not sure lol^^ )
and they they could do it for a price of 150/150 and decrease the Research time of that Obs/Prism upgrade a bit!
Warp prisms don't do anything besides warp in/drop units unlike Terran Healing and supply buildings for Zerg so Z&T build them anyway, drop is just an added bonus/option.. That's why they do it more. WP cost way too much, are built like paper airplanes and slower than molasses. We have a stealthy option to get behind enemy lines already called DTs and don't have to build a worthless drop ship plus speed upgrade to get them there. Especially when we could be building real units out of robo.
When HT had Amulet you saw them more. Because you could just risk WP and not a WP full of HT's with energy, and warp in a storm on some harvesters, other than that they are of limited use compared to other options.
On May 06 2011 20:39 SpaNkinG wrote: what they could maybe add or in other words to fusion is the observer and warp-prism upgrade! I mean if Blizz would combine these 2 Upgrades to one they'd be used more often in my humble opinion! They could increase a bit the costs as if u'd do one upgrade like obs speed is 100/100 and prism speed aswel , i guess( not sure lol^^ )
and they they could do it for a price of 150/150 and decrease the Research time of that Obs/Prism upgrade a bit!
What do u think about that ?
im sold this is a wonderful idea also if t hey combined blink and charge like stim effects both maraders and marines. would be nice to be able to cloak the warmp prism too but i doubt that will happen anytime soon LOL peace
Im a T player and this is the first thing that came to mind about this lil guy. 150 minerals only. thats good....not sure if it costs food (correct me pl0x). Mid late game i could dedicate a robo and pump these guys out as proxy pylos across the map in hard to reach areas specially if he snizziped my pylos
If they reduced the supply cost to 1, build time to roughly 20~ seconds, and combined the upgrades then I would most likely make an effort to use them every game.
The way it is for Protoss, Colossus/Observers and immortals play such important roles, creating Warp-Prisms out of Robotics is like a Mech Terran having to create Medivacs out of Tech Lab factories.
If they moved it to Stargate tech, it would get a lot more use
Warp prisms are fine. They are better than Brood war shuttles in every way.
WP have better base acceleration. WP aren't capped by their cargo capacity because they can warp in. Robo Facility in SC2 is cheaper than BW. WP shields regen crushes BW. In all other respects they are equal.
What happened is that the fundamental gameplay interactions screwed over WP.
In BW you didn't build too many marines unless you went deep six, because reaver and templar made them obsolete. You didn't want to get goliaths until protoss acquired carriers and if you had a game plan that hinged in shuttle sniping you usually spent resources to get a wraith instead.
In SC2 marines are the backbone of the army. You can't drop them like you could vulture tanks. Colossus simply don't work like reavers in low numbers which is what made shuttles viable. Massive number of colossus forces vikings so WP window of opportunity to be the most useful is vary narrow compared to the shuttle.
Shuttle play PVZ wasn't as well rounded as it was in PvT but it existed even with the threat of scourge because zerg army was too mobile and reavers in low numbers were too powerful not to be employed.
WP should exist in PvZ but hiding pylons with probes is cheaper resource wise and usually no different APM wise than WP play. Protoss want to build Colossus in high numbers which has higher priority over making even a single WP because Colossus do get sniped too frequently in this matchup.
In BW PvP you need shuttles with your reavers. The current thinking in SC2 PVP is that you don't need WP for anything.
But let's keep in mind patch 1.3 will throw a wrench into Warp gate play which has dominated the outcomes in PVP. So we will see whether or not WP can be explored as a useful tool.
On May 06 2011 21:11 Whitewing wrote: I want an upgrade to allow deployed warp prisms to be mobile shield batteries.
Please.
Really? Warp prisms have insane potential that really hasn't been explored yet at all. Before protoss start clamoring for buffs they really need to experiment with the unit first. With the speed upgrade they are the fastest of all the transports. With their dual function as a pylon they can deploy more units than medivacs or overlords (potentially limitless). Something that has rarely been used against me but is insanely effective is templar drops. No other drop, including baneling drops can dish out as much damage to a mineral line as this. Many top level toss (Whitera, Socke, Minigun and Tyler come to mind) have showcased that even a single warp prisms can be extremely powerful if utilized correctly. All of these players have shown different ways to effectively include warp prisms into their builds and game play. Warp prisms build very quickly, even quicker with chronoboost and building one really doesn't cut into your collosus production as you usually want the range upgrade first anyways. I would argue the real reason we don't see the warp prism used much isn't because of any weakness or inefficiency but with the strength of the protoss deathball there really hasn't been incentive for protoss to try anything different. Why try to execute APM dependent drops when you can just mass up an unkillable army?
On May 03 2011 06:43 FatkiddsLag wrote: im going to start making another robo just to pump out warp prisms
I'd thumbs this up if I could. Drops are a real bitch. Also I think protoss the best drops are dt, 4 zealot drops or a high templar drop behind the mineral line. The idea is to get in and out with the warp prison anyway.
On May 03 2011 06:43 FatkiddsLag wrote: im going to start making another robo just to pump out warp prisms
I'd thumbs this up if I could. Drops are a real bitch. Also I think protoss the best drops are dt, 4 zealot drops or a high templar drop behind the mineral line. The idea is to get in and out with the warp prison anyway.
Since when? Imagine a single warp prism being used to execute a 2 pronged attack. Attack with your main army at one location while a warp prism sneaks to another location and starts warping in units from any number of gateways. As I said before, the warp prism isn't as hindered as the other transports in the number or variety of units it can deploy. You could drop a collosus and warp in 10 gateway units from a single prism. I have never really seen a protoss try to execute it but I fear I may have just shed light on a ridiculously powerful and effective strategy for toss to utilize.
All of your points are valid, but I feel like they don't really answer the issue of dropping as Protoss. There's literally nothing stopping them from doing drops except for looking at their robo bay and facility and scoffing saying "I need more colossus why would I ever build a warp prism." This is much the same problem for immortals. Protoss' obsession with colossus is killing them I feel I feel like immortals solve the problem of ineffective Protoss drops. These things absolutely tear through supply depots and reactors.
Basically, if you get speed shuttles and put immortals in them, you're pretty much guaranteed damage against the other player. It's just a matter of deciding when you're done making colossus apparently.
If the only thing you are interested in making from the robo is collosus, why not make a prism while your bay is being warped in? The need for collosus shouldn't conflict with making a prism.
I think instead of making them better at dropping, they should be changed simply to become more awesome. Have them regenerate shields to any unit within the psionic matrix when deployed. 'twould be pretty fly, I think it'd give them more usage and give them something to do that isn't a poor drop.
EDIT: Didn't realise that a guy above me already came up with this. Good to hear I'm not the only one who thinks it'd be cool!
One point not considered in the OP is that the warp prism's secondary use is very specific, and doesn't require more than one prism.
So 5 overlords are roughly 5 times better than 1 overlord because they deliver 5x the supply. 5 medivacs are roughly 5 times better than 1 medivac because they heal 5x as many units But 5 warp prisms are nowhere near 5 times better than 1 warp prism, because you only need one deployed warp prism to warp in all your gates.
So that means it's very unlikely that you'll ever see more than 1 or 2 prisms, where the other races naturally have a lot of their dropship.
its not so good vs zerg for a few reasons once zerg gets into midgame he gets: - creep everywhere (connecting all bases to increase speed and good vision of any toss units moving on his side of the map) - speed overlords spread all over the map dropping creep (sees any harass incoming long before warp prism is ever going to reach zergs bases and increases the speed abit) - the warp prism is really slow and fragile (its really easy for any zerg units that hit air to kill it, even queens kill them fast) - they take up the robo production so your colossus or immortal count will be lower (same effect as making observers has, well except it doesnt cost gas) - zerg is stronger than toss when the battle is spread out on a big area or there are multiple fights at once. the reason behind this is that zerg is the one struggling to get surface area to make all his units attack at once while toss. zergs army takes more surface area in general to allow all his units to attack at once and toss has more AoE damage that supports this aswell. the guardian shield and FF is also optimal in tight battle areas - even if you do economical damage to the zerg. zerg has still alot easier time to replenish his economy than a toss or terran does (zerg usually lacks gas in the zvp rather than larva or minerals while terran builds scvs really slowly and needs more minerals overall in tvp and pvp is just low economy overall and losing probes is really bad)
even if warp prisms has more hp or the speed upgrade by default or cost less it would still be pretty ineffective in pvz compared to pvt. i also think toss has enough harass tools already vs zerg. pylon blocking expansions early game. making a few phoenixes is basically good in every aspect of the game unless you plan on making a really clean timing attack. blink stalkers can harass pretty nicely if you are careful and warpin dts with or without hidden pylons is really strong vs zerg too. also i wont forget to mention voidray in early midgame to deny building hatcheries before zerg gets creep, queens, hydras or corruptors to save it (mutalisk is not an option in early midgame in this situation because of the phoenix support)
warp prism harass however is alot stronger on bigger maps in the zvp matchup cause its difficult to spread overlords everywhere and connect creep between your bases. it takes alot longer time for zerg to respond compared to smaller maps
so to sum it up i think the warp prism is fine as it is in tvp and its not gonna become alot more encouraging to use it vs zerg even if it was buffed because of how the races interact with each other
i love warp prisms more and more every time I use them. I believe it was AGIANTSMURF who made a post about zealot dropping in PvT. I use them quite a bit in that matchup as well, as I prefer a Templar style, with robo for observers and immortals if needed. Storm drops are do terrible, terrible damage, and 2 pronged warp prism harass with storm can be instant GG. Many Terrans get thrown off by a harassment style protoss and don't know how to respond, either. warp prisms are probably going to see a lot more use as the game develops. most likely in the next year or two, warp prism harass will be standaaaaard.
On May 06 2011 23:03 Clerseri wrote: One point not considered in the OP is that the warp prism's secondary use is very specific, and doesn't require more than one prism.
So 5 overlords are roughly 5 times better than 1 overlord because they deliver 5x the supply. 5 medivacs are roughly 5 times better than 1 medivac because they heal 5x as many units But 5 warp prisms are nowhere near 5 times better than 1 warp prism, because you only need one deployed warp prism to warp in all your gates.
So that means it's very unlikely that you'll ever see more than 1 or 2 medivacs, where the other races naturally have a lot of their dropship.
Warp Prisms are late-game oriented (because as discussed earlier, you don't want to trade armies as P. So the only time you want to trade armies is when you are maxed but have a better economy so you can replace while he can't). So you can't warp stuff in when you are 200/200.
The fundamental difference is that medivacs are using existing army. While a Terran might have 20 marines and 2-3 medivacs sitting around in the mid game, he can use THOSE medivacs and marines to do the drop while using his current resources to expand/tech/build an army. With warp prisms, you are essentially using the warp prism like the medivac but the only option is a "build an army" option, since you have your army in your base not doing anything for the drop.
The main conclusion is that Protoss can't use warp prisms in the same way Terran uses medivacs, which is fine. However, I think Protoss needs to figure out what role the warp prism can play for THEM and what hole can it fill in their play. The lack of use of the warp prism implies that either 1) there is no role for the warp prism in the protoss army 2) there is no CURRENT hole that the warp prism can fill, there may be one later or not.
I think the idea of loading up 4 zealots (or HTs/DTs) and running into an expansion and dropping them is about the best harass protoss has. So why hasn't the protoss been doing them? If they go Colossus, they need the zealots as meet shield in their main army, and they "can't" stop colossus production to ensure getting that critical mass. When you go HTs, you will have enough money to spare and you can get the zealots. Colossus has been by far more popular than HTs (not necessarily better, but probably easier). The main dilemma here is that the speed upgrade is bunched with the colossus tech, the tech where you are least likely to get a warp prism. I think this was in design supposed to work and mimic the reaver-shuttle combo of BW, but obviously does not work in the same way in SC2.
I sometimes make a warp prism after my observor while waiting for my robo bay to go up. I don't know if many people do this, but i usually use it as a sort of emergency pylon just in case. If you barely hold off a push, but the enemy kills your pylons that power your buildlings, you can use the power field of the warp prism to instantly repower them instead of waiting for a pylon to finish. This can save you ~25seconds, which is a huge amount of time to rebuild your army
While rare prism use can be a game ender. I can remember a number of times when a Toss opponant has done a gret multi prong attack, death ball in the front and then continuous warps in my main.
This is even worse if those warps are DTs. a couple of DTs in a main without good detection is a fast gg
While 8 marines or a overlord full of banelings can cause a good amount of damage it is nothing like the power of a warp point in a main.
I hope toss don't read this thread and use more prism harass hehe
Now with the new archon buff coming up i might consider 1x archon 1x sentry drop. Force field the sides of the base and see the workers clumped up for you archon to demolish ^^ EDIT: spelling
On May 06 2011 23:36 ClueLessx3 wrote: Now with the new archon buff coming up i might consider 1x archon 1x sentry drop. Force field the sides of the base and see the workers clumped up for you archon to demolish ^^ EDIT: spelling
20 pages with comments... That is a lot of comments, so forgive me if I say something already said.
I think warp prisms are awesome! 200 minerals for a moveable pylon that can move stuff!
Use 2 maybe 3 warp prisms to harras with storms both on mineral lines and directly on their army to soften it up.
Also just having a warp prism or two with your army for constant warp in is nice.
Warp prisms can run away from ANYTHING!!! They are insanely fast with the speed upgrade, almost as fast as mutas!
What I am trying to say is that I love warp prisms <3, and think they are under used - people do not experiment enough with the possibilities available.
Plain and simple, it is opportunity cost. Protoss does not need harass to win for one thing; building up deathballs is effective enough, and virtually makes building a lot of economy pointless against protoss. Building warp prisms takes away time from observers, immortals, and collossi, all considerably more useful than warp prisms when it comes to the important aspects of protoss play (scouting enemy compositions, deathball units).
I've played people who try stuff like 5 gate warp prism warpins, but it really just doesn't work that well because stalkers and zealots are not very good. The best reason to use warp prisms is late game, popping some DTs around behind a base.
I think with the Archon buff coming, especially the range upgrade, archon drop could be viable. Reason for this is that you can fit 2 archons in a prism and 2 archons 1 shots workers + splash. With some luck, you'll kill 3 workers per attack (because workers on adjacent mineral lines and the tendency for workers to stack on top of each other on saturated mineral lines).
Once you see incoming units, you can run away as Archons are actually fairly quick (and now that it's going to be massive, it won't be slowed down).
Seems to me that protoss drops is more of a late game drop to be effective in contrast to terran's which is a mid game drop. Late game, especially againsts zerg, protoss needs to harrass, else zerg would just expand everywhere and have a booming economy.
I use warp prisms now and then, but main reason for me not using them is usually that my robotics are busy building observers, immortals and colossus. I have started using them more recently. In addition to providing drops, it can act as a "carry-with" pylon for main army, no need for proxy pylons in the field.
On May 06 2011 23:36 ClueLessx3 wrote: Now with the new archon buff coming up i might consider 1x archon 1x sentry drop. Force field the sides of the base and see the workers clumped up for you archon to demolish ^^ EDIT: spelling
To further this idea, a +3 archon can one shot scvs and drones, perhaps making it more viable in the late game, though it is a lot weaker versus probes. Just a thought.
What i was thinking of is in PvT, You use Warp Prisms to carry Ht's so they don't get EMP'd, and then drop them during the fight and storm really quickly! but the micro is just O.O...
On May 07 2011 01:03 SoundProof wrote: To further this idea, a +3 archon can one shot scvs and drones, perhaps making it more viable in the late game, though it is a lot weaker versus probes. Just a thought.
Thing is, if you have Templar tech and upgrades, it will almost always be better to use Chargelots. An all-mineral harass is almost always the best, especially considering how cheap Chargelots are compared to Archons.
On May 07 2011 01:08 PaPoolee wrote: What i was thinking of is in PvT, You use Warp Prisms to carry Ht's so they don't get EMP'd, and then drop them during the fight and storm really quickly! but the micro is just O.O...
ive seen MC do that. but not recently.
but i just find warp prisms dont scale as well together, as mentioned earlier in this thread. All we get is the ability to warp in and carry 4 units. We dont have a unit that can do alot of damage even against retreating workers.
Another point that i have yet to see in this thread yet, may be wrong though.(20 pages is alot)
But in most games a protoss its usually only viable to drop really early, or late game. Now in the mid late game. What do alot of maps have around their 2nd or 3rd base? A cliff. Take tal da rim altar for example. The natural, A colossus walking up behind that mineral line, is 100 times more effective than using a warp prism and extremely safe since you can bring your army down as well. So basically our replacement for Mechanical aoe over the reaver is the colossus and the colosus just isnt worth putting into a warp prism.
Basically the warp prism is a unit that can only really drop, and protoss doesnt have anything to put in it to do an effective drop. The warp in mechanic is made useless by a pylon. Unless the protoss wants to throw units away in the drop.
Another thing, what would it be like if the warp prism got like a shield generator ability or something else to compliment the army besides something a pylon can do. and pylons cant be shot by AA. Which is another thing that is super prevalent in the current meta game, making a probe build pylons everywhere a much more effective use of warp gates. Something to think about.
On May 07 2011 01:03 SoundProof wrote: To further this idea, a +3 archon can one shot scvs and drones, perhaps making it more viable in the late game, though it is a lot weaker versus probes. Just a thought.
Thing is, if you have Templar tech and upgrades, it will almost always be better to use Chargelots. An all-mineral harass is almost always the best, especially considering how cheap Chargelots are compared to Archons.
Maybe thats the problem. People are not willing to use gas to harass mineral line as protoss. Like many have mentioned before zeolot harass just isn't good enough. However if we look at zerg players who invest heavily in muta (gas heavy) to harass and help fight the enemy, so why can't we do the same? Archons are a great addition in your army composition with adjustable cost, might as well use them like muta and harass the crap out of min lines.
Meh, I have been trying to use them a lot more lately. I think it's fine as long as you put down robo bay as soon as robo facility is finished, chrono out two observers, and a warp, prism. Everything should get out before the bay is done, and losing that extra immortal is meh, not that noticeable.
I thought about dropping as Protoss quite a while ago - and I would really like to harass some more. But here is how I think about drops:
If you're playing against a Protoss and you're scouting a Robo, the first thing that comes to your mind is: He's building a Colossus! Therefore, you will build units that can counter the Colossus - just like Vikings or Corruptors. Now let's think about units that can shut down your drop in an instant ... yeah, Vikings and Corruptors :- )
Of course you can still pull of a drop - but losing your whole drop _and_ the prism is nearly guaranteed. Therefore, I don't think it is worth the investment. And for the PvP matchup, where air units aren't guaranteed: He can warp in units as fast as you can. I really think that the prism is most effective in that matchup anyways - if he just spent his warpins for example.
As for mid to late game drops: Dropping DTs is quite powerful, but since DTs can't shoot and aren't that fast, pulling your workers away can limit the damage dealt by the harass tremendously. But it is still very useful in my opinion (actually, it's the only drop that has worked for me), just because you're pressuring him.
And for the insane double-templar storm drop: If you have Robo & Storm-tech and you are able to outmaneuver your enemies air units and you can actually land your units because the turrets are badly placed and you don't need two vital storms in your deathball ... then it might be pretty good. Or perhaps not, because to be completely honest, killing SCVs in the ultra late game isn't that important anymore. Especially because there is no need for my enemy to bring back his army - after two storms, two templars (even as an archon) aren't that scary. Of course it isn't bad - but I would prefer crushing that whole expansion with my army by then - and landing two storms in his defense force might be more powerful.
I dont understand how 200 minerals are harder to spare than 100 gas or 200/200 for zergs, it's not like anyone would go mass warp prism drop. plus you can get 8 units because it drops as well as warps in simultaniously
On May 07 2011 02:54 Murdoc.Z wrote: I dont understand how 200 minerals are harder to spare than 100 gas or 200/200 for zergs, it's not like anyone would go mass warp prism drop. plus you can get 8 units because it drops as well as warps in simultaniously
Zergs and terrans have other reasons to build overlords and medivacs. When it comes for zergs to research drops they get all of their overlords. Making the drops effective for mass units, and banelings make small number of unit drops possible. Overlords are also used to tank damage and drop banelings over sentries and other units, or drops initiating combat so the zerg ball doesnt take splash.Terrans have medivacs, which are extremely useful when building bio. Meaning that these 2 drop mechanics are not just for harassment and have purpose outside of that role. One could also argue that zerg has to pay for overlord speed, but that speed upgrade also allows overlords to keep up with the zerg army, Scout and not get picked off as easily.
While protoss has ability to warpin, you could just build a pylon behind your forces. Its cheaper and doesnt take up robo time. Making the secondary ability on the warp prism near useless. As while yes you can get 8 units but you also will lose 4 during a drop regardless of the damage done, Making the cost effectiveness quite terrible. While terran and zerg can just pack up and leave with all units.
I think The Final Boss hit the nail on the head with his post. Nothing wrap with prisms, they just aren't much used atm because there is no reason to do drops as P.
On May 07 2011 03:23 ScythedBlade wrote: In all honesty, I feel like they should buff Warp Prisms. Would there be anything imbalanced if they did? =X
Yes, there is always the possibility for imbalance.
If they are made too durable, suddenly protoss is given a very safe way to attack weak points. Drop stalkers/immortals, retreat in your super tanky warp prisms, having done "free" damage.
If they are made to fast, it may give protoss too much mobility. High templar zipping around the map no problem.
If they are allowed to carry more, protoss drops may end up having too much raw power, as they attack your weakest point with a full warp in combined with a high supply count cargo.
I'm not saying that buffs to warp prisms are guaranteed to cause game imbalance, but it is always possible that buffs wreck balance.
On May 07 2011 03:29 BigFan wrote: I think The Final Boss hit the nail on the head with his post. Nothing wrap with prisms, they just aren't much used atm because there is no reason to do drops as P.
nope you just don't gain much from it the risk reward is just not good, though if you can catch an opponent off guard sure it can lead to a win, still a good terran puts up turrets making drops impossible anyway.
dropeffectiveness is very mapspecific. a terran can afford to even lose a drop cause bunkers will keep him safe, Protoss doesn't have that luxury.
I've always thought the warp prism should move slightly faster then it does.
The main thing for me is how fragile the warp prism is, There is a good chance that I'm going to lose it so like someone earlier said I have to be able to do significant damage with it, especially since if I lose it and have my units stranded in his base (either 4 or 8 units depending on if I got a warp in or not).
Something I haven't seen addressed is that unlike the other drop ships, a prism gets exponentially stronger later in the game, not only because of the speed upgrade should you choose to get it ( I personally don't think that I ever have ) but because Protosse's gateway count goes up dramatically as he nears the 200 mark. Protoss has the ability to do a 20 unit drop with dt's, stalkers, zealots.. Easy to do some very significant damage.
I think everyone agrees that the reason it is so fragile and must be is because you can warp in additional units with it.Personally I have always thought that the warp prism should have 1 or 2 armor, this would make it more feasible as an actual drop ship, but to still keep it balanced as an ''ability unit'' (for lack of a better term ) when it's in prism mode it is unarmored, you could justify it from an ''rp'' perspective by saying that its more vulnerable in that position and when it's wings are expanded.
In my opinion protoss drops are rare not because of the warp prism (warp prism is fine), but because of the units available to drop. They are all pretty hard to use efficiently and protoss bio really haven't been used alot hence protoss bio haven't been experimented with as much. (hoping the PTR changes will change this, I know I for one are gonna become the protoss bio king) I am sure when people starts to experiment with protoss bio we will start to see some wicked versatile drop play :D
I know that an argument for not going for warp prisms is the fact that they eat away observer and colossi build time. Why not just stop building colossi until late game and then focus on warp prism speed, observers and warp prisms to gain map control and expand while getting a shit ton of void rays and colossi ?
And to people who say that it is not cost effective or hard to make it work: force it to work! Multiple drops or just drop a templar near your opponents army - storm the #¤%& out off everything! And then use the ultra fast 3.375 speed void prism to escape with no loses! ^^
This IMO is ten times more fun than the usual 2/3 base death ball push. Also makes the games more interesting for others that might watch ^^
On May 07 2011 01:29 ClueLessx3 wrote: Maybe thats the problem. People are not willing to use gas to harass mineral line as protoss. Like many have mentioned before zeolot harass just isn't good enough. However if we look at zerg players who invest heavily in muta (gas heavy) to harass and help fight the enemy, so why can't we do the same? Archons are a great addition in your army composition with adjustable cost, might as well use them like muta and harass the crap out of min lines.
Strongly disagree.
Chargelots + Warp Prisms are AMAZING harassment, assuming the enemy doesn't have AtA out in force. The problem I see is that Templar tech plus Robo tech are completely different paths, so this is left for very late game harassment. Protoss don't really have an early-mid game harassment other than Stargate tech. I don't count DTs as I feel they are used quite badly by a lot of people at the moment (if I'm asked to elaborate I will, but it seems unecessary atm) and their proper role hasn't been figured out. My suspicions are that DTs will become a lategame option as well, as you sacrifice far too much tech/army to get DTs out in the mid game and DTs become exponentially more powerful the more bases your enemy has (like most harassment).
What I really want to see is a PvT where Protoss has gone mass Gateway style (early Council, upgrades etc) and then, while taking 3rd base, gone for Robo Facility to get Observer/Warp Prisms (and very delayed Colossus). Then start harassing with Warp Prism plus a few Chargelots. Eventually, once Robo Bay is up and Colossi are getting made (with Lance finished), Prism Speed should be researched. Continue harassing, but better etc. Eventually, get DTs and use 2 Warp Prisms loaded with Chargelots to go in and attack. Focus down Turrets, then workers. Then warp in as many DTs as possible and go on the rampage! Seems quite solid to me, and would work against Mech as well as Bio.
On May 07 2011 01:29 ClueLessx3 wrote: Maybe thats the problem. People are not willing to use gas to harass mineral line as protoss. Like many have mentioned before zeolot harass just isn't good enough. However if we look at zerg players who invest heavily in muta (gas heavy) to harass and help fight the enemy, so why can't we do the same? Archons are a great addition in your army composition with adjustable cost, might as well use them like muta and harass the crap out of min lines.
Strongly disagree.
Chargelots + Warp Prisms are AMAZING harassment, assuming the enemy doesn't have AtA out in force. The problem I see is that Templar tech plus Robo tech are completely different paths [..snip..]
No, no they are NOT amazing harassment *at all*. Have you played against solid opponents? The moment the workers start to flee the mineral line, your harassment damage is reduced to nothing. Literally: zero. The chargelots can charge once, strike once, then the workers are out of range and STILL outrunning chargelots even after the charge passive speed boost (+0.5 to 2.75). If anything, you might get one or two escapees. 10 seconds later you can charge again, but if the opponent can't respond with SOME attacking units in 10 seconds, that's a lucky or very well/specifically timed drop. You could switch to targeting a depot or pylon, but it takes 7 swings from all 4 zealots with +1 to kill the depot - that's 10 seconds too. Are you going to risk losing 400 minerals of zealots to kill one supply building that likely won't even supply cap an opponent at that stage of the game?
At least 4 stalkers can one-shot workers as they flee, but that's still going to get you 4-7 workers.
Compare this to marine drops: 6 shots from +1 marines to kill a worker. Shots take just over half a second. 8 marines drop and stim - this means you're killing over 2 workers A SECOND at range and with no additional micro required - micro only makes it more powerful, but they'll do a fine job on their own A-moved. You're almost guaranteed to get at LEAST 8 workers, compared to a Protoss drop that's going to get at MOST 8 workers against a competent player.
There's a reason Warp Prisms aren't that popular, and it's not the Warp Prism itself. Just like a dozen people have said in this thread - it's the units that are dropped that are the problem, they cannot kill workers or buildings nearly as fast as competing drops. It's the nature of Protoss - it's not necessarily a problem, but it's the reason Warp Prisms are underused.
The rest of your argument, requiring templar+robo tech, or suggesting that Protoss goes mass gateway until 3 base, just further undermines the credibility of the above. The reason Protoss doesn't go mass gateway until 3 base is because they will generally die to strong mass ball pushes from the other races.
On May 07 2011 01:29 ClueLessx3 wrote: Maybe thats the problem. People are not willing to use gas to harass mineral line as protoss. Like many have mentioned before zeolot harass just isn't good enough. However if we look at zerg players who invest heavily in muta (gas heavy) to harass and help fight the enemy, so why can't we do the same? Archons are a great addition in your army composition with adjustable cost, might as well use them like muta and harass the crap out of min lines.
Strongly disagree.
Chargelots + Warp Prisms are AMAZING harassment, assuming the enemy doesn't have AtA out in force. The problem I see is that Templar tech plus Robo tech are completely different paths [..snip..]
No, no they are NOT amazing harassment *at all*. Have you played against solid opponents? The moment the workers start to flee the mineral line, your harassment damage is reduced to nothing. Literally: zero. The chargelots can charge once, strike once, then the workers are out of range and STILL outrunning chargelots even after the charge passive speed boost (+0.5 to 2.75). If anything, you might get one or two escapees. 10 seconds later you can charge again, but if the opponent can't respond with SOME attacking units in 10 seconds, that's a lucky or very well/specifically timed drop. You could switch to targeting a depot or pylon, but it takes 7 swings from all 4 zealots with +1 to kill the depot - that's 10 seconds too. Are you going to risk losing 400 minerals of zealots to kill one supply building that likely won't even supply cap an opponent at that stage of the game?
At least 4 stalkers can one-shot workers as they flee, but that's still going to get you 4-7 workers.
Compare this to marine drops: 6 shots from +1 marines to kill a worker. Shots take just over half a second. 8 marines drop and stim - this means you're killing over 2 workers A SECOND at range and with no additional micro required - micro only makes it more powerful, but they'll do a fine job on their own A-moved. You're almost guaranteed to get at LEAST 8 workers, compared to a Protoss drop that's going to get at MOST 8 workers against a competent player.
There's a reason Warp Prisms aren't that popular, and it's not the Warp Prism itself. Just like a dozen people have said in this thread - it's the units that are dropped that are the problem, they cannot kill workers or buildings nearly as fast as competing drops. It's the nature of Protoss - it's not necessarily a problem, but it's the reason Warp Prisms are underused.
The rest of your argument, requiring templar+robo tech, or suggesting that Protoss goes mass gateway until 3 base, just further undermines the credibility of the above. The reason Protoss doesn't go mass gateway until 3 base is because they will generally die to strong mass ball pushes from the other races.
This. You want to drop units which are high-dps and low-cost when you are doing anything but a doom drop, because the risk is very low compared to the potential reward.
The reason terrans drop so frequently is because 1 medivac worth of marines with stim will kill many, many workers, even if the reaction is quick, and two medivacs full of marauders can kill every pylon in a base in a short period of time, and if you lose a medivac full of marines or a couple of medivacs full of marauders, but you were able to have the run of the base for 30 seconds or so, you're ahead.
Similarly, zergling drops are cheap and expendible, and 8-16 zerglings going to work in a mineral line are going to do a lot of damage. They're not as effective as marine drops, so they're not used as often, but the complete loss of all the forces they dropped is literally inconsequential to the zerg unless they're starved. Similarly, banelings are more expensive than zerglings, but the potential reward is much higher - being unprepared for only a second might lose you all your workers immediately.
Now think about the units that protoss might want to drop. 4 chargelots only cost as much as a medivac full of marines, but if you get them into the mineral line, they're going to kill a few SCVs at most, and there's no way they'll kill even one building before they're dealt with. 4 stalkers would be detracting from that critical number of stalkers you need in your deathball to protect yourself from anti-air, and they're more expensive with even less DPS. DTs can be good - they can wreck an unprepared opponent, so dropping them can actually be a good idea, but it's situational. They're good only if your opponent has no in-base detection presently available AND his units are away from the base. And 2 DTs are hideously expensive to a gas-starved protoss. An immortal drop is good situationally in PvP, but is not good for harassment, so again, it's a niche drop.
Essentially, protoss don't really have particularly good (by good, I mean high reward, low risk) drop options that the other races do. I'm not complaining - that's fine, we have other ways to harass. Additionally, I think protoss gateway unit harass might be very valuable coupled with an assault on the front - deathball in front, zealots in the main - but this is better accomplished with a pylon and an obs, as it uses less robo time, is cheaper, and you don't have to worry about a couple of marines or a queen picking off the warp prism.
I find it odd, that you don't mention the fact that you can load a warp prism up with 4 units, and then warp in any number of units after its in position, thereby able to drop a larger number of units than any other single transport in the game.
I think MorroW pretty much nailed it in his post a couple pages back.
Overall, it is fine the way it is though. I guess it could stand to be a little bit more durable, but not much. A good suggestion I read on here was to combine warp prism and observer speed into the same upgrade. I don't think many people would be opposed to that from any race.
I play protoss, use them frequently in masters, and think they would be fine if left alone, though I wouldnt mind the suggestions in my above paragraph
On May 07 2011 05:29 Avs wrote: I find it odd, that you don't mention the fact that you can load a warp prism up with 4 units, and then warp in any number of units after its in position, thereby able to drop a larger number of units than any other single transport in the game.
why do so many people keep mentioning this? its like every other post.
The answer is simple, because you lose that entire wave of units for not that great of damage on the harass. Good drops from T and Z micro around and will have minimal casualties. And if were talking late game just to warp in reinforcements. A pylon is better...
On May 07 2011 04:49 Polatrite wrote: No, no they are NOT amazing harassment *at all*. Have you played against solid opponents? The moment the workers start to flee the mineral line, your harassment damage is reduced to nothing. Literally: zero. The chargelots can charge once, strike once, then the workers are out of range and STILL outrunning chargelots even after the charge passive speed boost (+0.5 to 2.75). If anything, you might get one or two escapees. 10 seconds later you can charge again, but if the opponent can't respond with SOME attacking units in 10 seconds, that's a lucky or very well/specifically timed drop. You could switch to targeting a depot or pylon, but it takes 7 swings from all 4 zealots with +1 to kill the depot - that's 10 seconds too. Are you going to risk losing 400 minerals of zealots to kill one supply building that likely won't even supply cap an opponent at that stage of the game?
I'm not a genius, but I've seen WhiteRa use Chargelots plus Warp Prisms very well. The idea is to attack in multiple places at once, and put the Chargelots down in the right place etc, etc. For example, if you have dropped your Chargelots in different places in the mineral line, it will be difficult for enemy workers to move past them, especially if they are on hold position.
Are Chargelots + Warp Prism as good as Marines + Medivacs for harassment? Probably not, especially at the lower levels. Does that make them bad? Absolutely not, they are very solid harassment units, especially as even if some die you can move away, warp in more and harass again. Sometimes you don't need to do more damage than you take, or even break even. If you keep your opponent pinned in his base you gain full map control etc, etc.
Even if you attack and kill 8 workers, say, and get back in your Warp Prism and run away, that is well over 400 minerals you have taken from your opponent (as a lot of mining time will be lost, has to pull army back, delays anything 400 minerals are needed for instantly or cripples economy).
On May 07 2011 04:49 Polatrite wrote:The rest of your argument, requiring templar+robo tech, or suggesting that Protoss goes mass gateway until 3 base, just further undermines the credibility of the above. The reason Protoss doesn't go mass gateway until 3 base is because they will generally die to strong mass ball pushes from the other races.
I think AdelScott and Tyler would probably disagree with you on that one. Did you see AdelScott vs MvP in TSL? I was specifically talking about PvT by the way (and it says so), so I don't know what you mean by 'other races'. Please don't just dismiss styles which have proven to be successful at the highest level of play, and have been successful for me too. To be honest your response to my suggestion tells more about your credibility than mine.
Very interesting thread and i agree with most of the points mentioned.
I feel like if the warp prism didn't come out of the robotics facility then it would be much more viable. ATM i never make warp prisms because i feel like i am always making something else that is more important with the robo. I think that if it is made a stargate unit then it will be used more and it seems to make sense as it is a flying unit. I for one would most probably use it much more if it came out of the stargate, or if there was another way of getting them.
It's also definetly true though that protoss don't want to split up their army, while terran and zerg usually do want to. As a protoss, you always want to fight with your whole army and this is probably the second biggest reason why we don't see warp prisms often IMO.
On May 07 2011 05:41 Stoffelhase wrote: i did not read a lot here, but the main reason i dont use prism (master league) is the speed and damage of the units dropped..
with stim or speedlings you dont have to suicide your units AND can do a lot of dmg..
if you do a zealot drop, they can do some dmg, but mostly will just scare workers away for 5 seconds with just 1-2 kills.. the other races kill more..
if you drop stalkers, they do way to less dmg to be really effective..
the suicide effect: protoss units are just way to slow walking back to the prism..
I've played with drops in a few games (admittedly not masters level) and where I've had the most success is combining zealots with a sentry or two. I use the sentries to FF the area between the hatch/nexus/CC and the refinery, which causes all kinds of pathing problems when probes are trying to escape. I never leave the sentry (or sentries) there though, once they've FF'ed they're back in the transport and ready to go.
On May 07 2011 04:49 Polatrite wrote: No, no they are NOT amazing harassment *at all*. Have you played against solid opponents? The moment the workers start to flee the mineral line, your harassment damage is reduced to nothing. Literally: zero. The chargelots can charge once, strike once, then the workers are out of range and STILL outrunning chargelots even after the charge passive speed boost (+0.5 to 2.75). If anything, you might get one or two escapees. 10 seconds later you can charge again, but if the opponent can't respond with SOME attacking units in 10 seconds, that's a lucky or very well/specifically timed drop. You could switch to targeting a depot or pylon, but it takes 7 swings from all 4 zealots with +1 to kill the depot - that's 10 seconds too. Are you going to risk losing 400 minerals of zealots to kill one supply building that likely won't even supply cap an opponent at that stage of the game?
Even if you attack and kill 8 workers, say, and get back in your Warp Prism and run away, that is well over 400 minerals you have taken from your opponent (as a lot of mining time will be lost, has to pull army back, delays anything 400 minerals are needed for instantly or cripples economy).
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Well that's the problem right there. Against good opponents, unless they're otherwise preoccupied or you get extremely lucky, you won't kill anywhere near 8 workers with a chargelot drop. You'll be lucky to kill 1-2. At most, your drop will kill 2 workers and prevent mining for like...8 seconds.
Drops are all about risk-reward. Is the risk of losing X resources/supply of units worth the possible Y reward I can get out of it? For Protoss drops, the risk is much too high for the possible reward. That's why drops aren't done and that's also why you probably won't see Protoss drops become anywhere near common anytime soon.
On May 07 2011 11:19 Ryuu314 wrote: Well that's the problem right there. Against good opponents, unless they're otherwise preoccupied or you get extremely lucky, you won't kill anywhere near 8 workers with a chargelot drop. You'll be lucky to kill 1-2. At most, your drop will kill 2 workers and prevent mining for like...8 seconds.
Drops are all about risk-reward. Is the risk of losing X resources/supply of units worth the possible Y reward I can get out of it? For Protoss drops, the risk is much too high for the possible reward. That's why drops aren't done and that's also why you probably won't see Protoss drops become anywhere near common anytime soon.
I think you are severely underestimating the damage done by a Chargelot drop, especially late game and especially when you are attacking in multiple places at once. Again, I believe that Chargelot drops are best lategame, and why I dislike the fact that we have no highly useful harassment unit early to midgame, while Terran has about 6 or 7 early to midgame harassment units, and possibly even more lategame. That does not make Chargelots + Warp Prism worse, but it does resign them to the lategame.
On May 07 2011 11:19 Ryuu314 wrote: Well that's the problem right there. Against good opponents, unless they're otherwise preoccupied or you get extremely lucky, you won't kill anywhere near 8 workers with a chargelot drop. You'll be lucky to kill 1-2. At most, your drop will kill 2 workers and prevent mining for like...8 seconds.
ANY player can be caught off guard with drops, and just like any other kind off harass it gives you map control which makes you able to do what you want. And as for economic effectiveness you do not have to do a lot of damage in the mid game - just punish if a mistake is made. Effective protoss drops are more suited for the late-game IMO.
But I must agree that drops for protoss players in general prob won't be very popular until the colossi death ball strategy is wrecked apart and people start experimenting more with the void prisms. "Why take chances when you can win without taking any?"
must say that I still love warp prisms - insanely funny^^
I like warp prisms. I really do. So I'm going to analyze my own and my thoughts about the warp prism.
As we all can conclude, is that the warp prism is fairly slow. It's super weak and can be killed by almost anything.
So what leaves the warp prism usage us? The protoss player can use warp prisms effectively in PvT by 3 reasons.
1. Due to general mapcontrol that the protoss player have against a terran opponent. The terran are unable to scout any early dropping action before the warp prism is in his base. Resulting in that the terran has to deal with the prism before he can counter.
2. DT drop. DT is very effective against terrans due to their very expensive ways of detection. Only turrets are "cheap" and they are hard to set up while having DTs in the base at the same time.
3. HT drop. Storming the mineral line, killing a huge amount of workers in an instant.
As a protoss player, I'm anoyed just by looking at these 3 ways of using the prism. You see, there are just these three. No matter how you twist and turn this. The rest of the alternatives are very much bisarr, such as the early gas, +1 attack zealot drop with cannons against zerg and so on.
What we have to take into all of this is that a player have a good sense of feeling of what the opponent is doing and also where he is having holes in his defences. It is very common for instance, that a terran player is doing turrets around his expands and his base, not because he spotted a dark shrine. No, because he prevents the possibility of DTs showing up. Ever.
When it comes to drops like HT storm drops. If you have an issue or problem dealing with this. Basically you suck. Don't get anoyed when you read this, because this is a problem that protoss have to deal with ALOT against terrans. You have to split armys to deal with drops or "the possibility" of drops. That is why we place alot of offensive pylons to scout any drops. This can very well be said to terrans that are on 2-3 bases. Where HT drops comes into play, the terran can with ease place offensive supply depods to scout any aggression.
The HT drop is the most uneffective drop out there. Here we have a unit, that dies from anything, that have cargo, that have to wait 45 seconds to do his ability and fly very slow and the cargo is even slower. And if the drop is scouted, just move your workers to save them ALL.
Please compare this to any other drop of other races.
Naturally, HT drops can be used and work but only if the opponent makes mistakes.
One of the most important things that needs to be said, is that protoss doesn't really have good units to drop. HT and DT is great but that's it. Zealots are great units to kill workers but any good player just moves away his workers to save them and can then with ease deal with a massive 400 mineral investment.
As you probably noticed, i skipped the entire part of zerg. Why? Well it's quite frikkin obvious isn't it. The zerg has a natural path of going anti air against protoss, killing the prism in 1 second. They have overlords EVERYWHERE, detecting it very early and fast. All bases of a zerg has a natural defense against a warp prism, the queen. If I were to drop 4 zealots or more, they would be surrounded by a huge speedling army in 2 seconds due to speed and creep.
Does it work against protoss? Yes... well... no... sort of. Is really the answer. The problem with warp prism is that you walk a veeery fine line to survive. Just making the warp prism is taking away 2 zealots from your army, and then make atleast 3 to be effective in the opponents base. Will cause 5 zealots to disappear from your army. It's like placing an expand in PvP. 95% of the times it fails due to an attack at that time. If you use the warp prism, you focus on barely surviving while the zealots do enough damage til he warps in more units.
Sometimes it works, alot of the times it don't. 95% of the time is crappy opponents that fails in their play.
I've read some other comments, obviously by a zerg or terran player. That have asked, why not use other units in the warp prism, for instance immortals/colossus or something else to do the herass?
The problem is this folks. The prism is very weak. It dies very fast. It dies from anything it encounter basically. Do you really want to put 2 immortals, which is 500 minerals and 200 gas and massive amount of robo time. In what can only be compared to a 30% hp medivac or overlord. Same thing goes for the colossus. Sure you can probably go on and do it, but why? It isn't effective. Is it really worth the risk to snipe 1 or at best 2 supply depods? A zerg, again, would deal with the threat in no time and have no problem with it. 1 queen against the warp prism = gg.
Lastly, don't ever argue that any drop can be effective if the opponent is caught off guard. Any drop in any situation can be effective under the right circumstance. If you know how to deal with them, and play in a way that allows you to fight them (This is to be said about drops in mid-late game.).
To conclude all of this. Warp prism is hilarious to play, because it enable a protoss player to push the opponent back when it usually is the protoss player that is being pushed back. So the protoss players comfort zone is huge in comparison. But in mid and late game, it is too much of a risk. Sadly, sometimes it IS the only way to beat a terran that have you in a contain. What could be done to make the prism better? lower the costs of it's speed. It's too much minerals in a too high risk element of playing.
Was watching the Day[9] Daily 'Dealing With Duckload' the other day when he pointed out Sjow dropping White Ra frequently, but never actually doing very much damage at all. The point was that the purpose of the drops was not to kill probes, snipe pylons or kill a nexus, it was to do a different sort of damage; keep White Ra on the backfoot, spread him out, keep him in his base.
Just thought that should be kept in mind for people saying protoss units aren't good for dropping because they don't do much damage in small groups; maybe they don't need to. The threat of a drop is often worse than the drop itself.
On May 08 2011 23:07 The KY wrote: Was watching the Day[9] Daily 'Dealing With Duckload' the other day when he pointed out Sjow dropping White Ra frequently, but never actually doing very much damage at all. The point was that the purpose of the drops was not to kill probes, snipe pylons or kill a nexus, it was to do a different sort of damage; keep White Ra on the backfoot, spread him out, keep him in his base.
Just thought that should be kept in mind for people saying protoss units aren't good for dropping because they don't do much damage in small groups; maybe they don't need to. The threat of a drop is often worse than the drop itself.
Thats is true and infact , if the opponent fears drops he just donates the mapcontrol to you and you can easily expand ,or just do whatever you want to.
protoss is a gas starved race, why are you complaining about 200 mineral/ 0 gas cost and comparing it to 100/100 gas is worth about 2x minerals last i checked the best way to go about these drops is warp prisms phase in single dt's
On May 08 2011 23:07 The KY wrote: Was watching the Day[9] Daily 'Dealing With Duckload' the other day when he pointed out Sjow dropping White Ra frequently, but never actually doing very much damage at all. The point was that the purpose of the drops was not to kill probes, snipe pylons or kill a nexus, it was to do a different sort of damage; keep White Ra on the backfoot, spread him out, keep him in his base.
Just thought that should be kept in mind for people saying protoss units aren't good for dropping because they don't do much damage in small groups; maybe they don't need to. The threat of a drop is often worse than the drop itself.
Minigun used them extensively in his showmatch against sixjaxMajor yesterday to great effect. At the right time, 3 zealots, or a dt can have devastating results.
On May 08 2011 23:20 Qaz wrote: Minigun used them extensively in his showmatch against sixjaxMajor yesterday to great effect. At the right time, 3 zealots, or a dt can have devastating results.
He would drop 3 Zealots and kill maybe 4 SCVs, and then lose all the Zealots. Not sure if the trade is worth it at that stage. It certainly disrupted sixjaxMajors play, but other than that I think Minigun did more economic damage to himself half the time, considering those DT's are 125gas each
Hi fellow Tler's! I have some problem with the way people think about the warp prism play. First, if you load 4 stalker and then got to the ennemy base, find a black spot and warp in 4 more stalker. Now you actually have 8 stalker wich is a LOT if you consider the 6:30-7:00 min mark. I recently adopted a build order that i made with SCfusion that allow me to make a timing attack in the ennemy base with those 8 stalker. Its quite suprising to see that toss and terrant player react really badly to this warp prism play. We should emphasise the fact that the warp prism allow you INSTAN reinforcement in your army anywhere it is. No proxy pylon, no advance positionning ect. ect. Many of us use 2-3 pylon around the map to reinforce quickly. But the warp prism can do that anywhere you want. I know that you can snipe it and if you spot my drop comming you can snipe a warp prism with 2-4 stalker wich could be really costly by the 7:00 mark. An expanding terran will have a sizable army by then, good micro can win you the game stait up.
In conclusion, warp prism can be use for a lot of thing if you really just think about it for 2 second. Timing attack are great, multiprong attack is nice too, powering cannon in the ennemy base, and warp the amount of unit equal to the number of gate! We need to think outside the box. Yes its fragile, yes its costly but ITS A STYLE OF PLAY! You don't always need all your costly unit if you can manage to do great damage with that tool.
I'm still waiting for someone to use their warp prism with their army so they can reinforce as a fight is happening. I think however the thinking is "build enough units to critical mass->send them + probe to enemy -> build pylon instead.
I'm guessing also maybe Archon drops in the future might not be so bad with the improved range? They can do ok damage as it is biological (vZ vT) and if you're uprgrading your army simultaneously they'll be even better. I guess this would be similar to a Thor drop (though those also seem to have fallen by the wayside)
On May 08 2011 23:20 Qaz wrote: Minigun used them extensively in his showmatch against sixjaxMajor yesterday to great effect. At the right time, 3 zealots, or a dt can have devastating results.
He would drop 3 Zealots and kill maybe 4 SCVs, and then lose all the Zealots. Not sure if the trade is worth it at that stage. It certainly disrupted sixjaxMajors play, but other than that I think Minigun did more economic damage to himself half the time, considering those DT's are 125gas each
In game 3, he got 12-13 scv kills with 2 zealots, and never lost the warp prism. How is that not worth it?
I think making the cost 150/50 would make players much more inclined to use the warp prism. When it comes down to it, I'm simply more comfortable making 2 zealots for 200 minerals than a warp prism unless I'm very confident that I can abuse a certain player with drops.
The one good thing Protoss have going for them is that Terran and Zerg players simply are not used to facing drops from Protoss. This makes them very unpredictable and unexpected and Protoss players can use this to their advantage. I've found that they're actually highly effective in some cases, especially if you use it to drop zealots on probes as you do a frontal attack with the Protoss death ball. I've noticed many players don't realize it's actually going on because they're not even looking for it, whereas against a Terran they might expect such a thing to happen and will be more readily prepared to defend against it and multitask.
On May 08 2011 23:20 Qaz wrote: Minigun used them extensively in his showmatch against sixjaxMajor yesterday to great effect. At the right time, 3 zealots, or a dt can have devastating results.
He would drop 3 Zealots and kill maybe 4 SCVs, and then lose all the Zealots. Not sure if the trade is worth it at that stage. It certainly disrupted sixjaxMajors play, but other than that I think Minigun did more economic damage to himself half the time, considering those DT's are 125gas each
In game 3, he got 12-13 scv kills with 2 zealots, and never lost the warp prism. How is that not worth it?
hmm, I need to go re-watch the games, maybe I'm getting it muddled with some of his recent ladder play, but in most cases he does multiple zealot drops but doesn't seem to really get a ton out of it. Sometimes trading 8-9 Zealots for 7-8 SCVs overall.
I think the main problem for me is that it's WAY too risky. Zealot drops can be effective against lower level players, but when you get into higher leagues people pull their SCVs away before you can even get a kill in, and clearly zealots are mopped up by marauders/marines.
On May 08 2011 23:12 Cyber_Cheese wrote: protoss is a gas starved race, why are you complaining about 200 mineral/ 0 gas cost and comparing it to 100/100 gas is worth about 2x minerals last i checked the best way to go about these drops is warp prisms phase in single dt's
On May 08 2011 23:07 The KY wrote: Was watching the Day[9] Daily 'Dealing With Duckload' the other day when he pointed out Sjow dropping White Ra frequently, but never actually doing very much damage at all. The point was that the purpose of the drops was not to kill probes, snipe pylons or kill a nexus, it was to do a different sort of damage; keep White Ra on the backfoot, spread him out, keep him in his base.
Just thought that should be kept in mind for people saying protoss units aren't good for dropping because they don't do much damage in small groups; maybe they don't need to. The threat of a drop is often worse than the drop itself.
who won that match?
Sjow did. Day[9] used a couple of White Ra vs Demuslim games to demonstrate how not keeping Ra on the backfoot was fatal. Then he used Sjow vs White Ra games to show how Sjow could beat White Ra without ever really engaging or even doing much damage at all with his drops.
Of course it's different against an MMM terran who has mobility and doesn't necessarily need to keep his army together, but I just thought it should be considered that the worth of a drop isn't always measured in how many things you kill with it (but it does help ;o)
I have the feeling that droping 4 zealot or stalker alone isn't ennough for real damage. DT can be awesome if not scouted and if the other player doesn't check his minimap. Although, it may be easy to overcommit to this kind of drop if you can't get away with it. Everything will depend on your micro in his base and on the way you will use that warp prism. And i have to admit that the warp prism is really fragile for his use. When its in warping mode, its really immobile, in that case it is really easy for the defender to snipe it and end the fight quicker than you would wan't it. A little buff in hp or in armor should be great. Speed is great for large map but i fear the it doesn't worth it in general . We may rename the roboticbay to babycare center since, observer, warp prism and collosus need a lot of attention due to their cost and their key role in combat situation.
On May 10 2011 01:05 Rickilicious wrote: Why protoss drops are rare
Because you need at least 400% MF to do those runs and get the proper drops.
They're rare because you can't replinish armies the same as Terran and Zerg.
Check out http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/147584-1v1-protoss-zerg-gutterhulk The Combo of ff plus drop mobility is effective to abuse a FE from zerg or a timing push from T. I used to get 3 raxed all the time, so i started doing this against T and it worked well. I quit because its all in, but its fun to do every once in a while.
Build a quick robo + 4 gates. load up 3-4 sentries in wp, lure army to the front by using a few zealots, then unload the sentries and perma-ff his ramp. warp in units and dont mess up the ffs for the win. Usually hits around 8 mins, might be off since i havent done it in forever.
If their T, they lose the ability to re-enforce since you cut off all production facilites. If their z their main army only grows by 1 hatch worth of production since you take out the main. Also theres 100% chance of a counter attack when doing this, so leave a sentry at home. TRY IT, ITS A FUN WAY TO DROP AND ABUSE FF.
On May 03 2011 06:39 `ChroMaTe_ wrote:Medivacs from Starports, which in most cases are going to be producing Medivacs during the whole game.
I disagree with that:
- if you are playing against protoss, you might need to produce vikings against collosi (or phoenix) - if you are playing against zerg, you might need to produce vikings against broodlords - if you are playing against terran, if you are going tank, you might need some vikings, too.
These are about production on a regular basis, of course, which is why I left out banshee/raven.
i just think pylons are better than warp prisms. You already need the supply so you might as well build them. Also they don't take supply or build time away from your robo.
Personally the colossi should be slower and warp prisms can be built from warp gates so that you can warp in warp prisms for warping more units from your warp gates. Maybe have it as robo bay tech.
Warp-prism harass is much stronger against Protoss than the other races. The army really tends sit in one big ball and it is quite slow, in most cases the other Protoss has to warp-in Zealots just to defend, which is a bonus, especially in the mid/late game where you really don't want a ton of Zealots, you end up losing yours but the other Protoss is forced to spend minerals and Warpgate cooldowns to defend, then is stuck with 3/4 more Zealots than they wanted.
In PvP, you can actually feel the economic damage you do from a Zealot drop.
In PvT, after being inspired by White-ra, I've been using a Speed-Prism with Templar to great success. Not just to storm mineral lines either. It is almost like you are stalking your prey, when you have a Speed Observer following the Terran army and a Speed Prism with two or three Templar not too far away you can often wait for moments where the Terrans split their medivacs from their main army, (be it a rally that is far away or medivacs getting to a place faster due to Terran, etc) you don't have to wait for long because in my experience it happens A LOT and the moment it does you can pounce and easily kill/burn 4+ Medivacs with Feedback leaving the Terran dumb founded and 99% of the time I end up saving my Speed-Prism and Templar too. It really constricts the movement of the Terran and puts them off key.
Really fun when you kill 8+ full energy medivacs just before you engage :D
This has likely been pointed out, but if you drop units and then transform into a power source, you now have the units you used as cargo + whatever you care to warp in.
Kinda feel like t/z drops work because the units are good at killing workers, and protoss units really aren't.
Zealots are good but not fast enough since workers can just run away until some units come to clear them out. Given that making the workers run away is probably worth 200 minerals in mining time. Colossus/archon/stalkers is just too expensive to drop.
I think dropping 2 sentries and warping in 2-4 zealots is worthwhile. Have the sentries drop ff's and run them back to the WP and leave the zealots to clean up... But that's a lot more work than a simple marine/ling drop.
Agreed with previous posts. Toss T1 kills workers/buildings too slowly (compared to roaches, banes, rines or rauders) and by the time you get tier 3 you really need every available unit in your ball.
+ lost robo build time
+ slow (researching speed just cuts into your actual unit count with the benefit of being able to reduce your ball's unit count further)
Wasting storms/units killing scv's/drones doesnt achieve much if you get steamrolled in turn with the minimal defenders advantage. The bigger the toss ball the stronger it gets, sacrificing units to harrass just isn't worth it alot of the time. 2 immortals in a prism is kinda interesting but is a HUGE risk (similar to that of reavers in bw) and far less rewarding than scarabs blowing up worker lines.
On May 08 2011 23:56 Sv1 wrote: I'm still waiting for someone to use their warp prism with their army so they can reinforce as a fight is happening. I think however the thinking is "build enough units to critical mass->send them + probe to enemy -> build pylon instead.
lol, that's exactly what i wanted to say. i'm glad that you mentioned it because i do that and it can be very effective. i tried experimenting with warp prism drops but protoss gateway units aren't that effective in small numbers and droping collossi can be fun, but it's not worth the risk vs good players. so the use i found for warp prisms was to build one just before i move out with either a collossus deathball or a heavy gateway army and set it to follow some unit. it's very simple and easy to do, it doesn't take much time and it has let me win some games, not only because you reinforce immediately but also because in maps like shakuras plateau or shattered temple you can attack the front of the natural and just as the enemy moves their units to defend it you just fly the warp prism to the high ground, warp in some units and attack on two fronts. i believe the ability to create an army behind enemy lines is something very strong and merits at least some experimentation on the part of protoss players. anyway, i've found this to be somewhat effective with deathballs, although probably unnecesary (it's not like they can kill 6 collossi if unprepared) but very effective with upgraded gateway units compositions, specially because you won't be using the robo to build collossi. and it's specially useful vs zerg, because 1) you can warp in on creep! and 2) you nullify the zerg's advantage to immediatly reinforce their army, because suddenly you can do just the same. for 200 minerals it's a big deal, just give the warp prism it's own control group (for fancy control and warp behind enemy lines action) and be careful never to warp in if the enemy can snipe the prism.
I personally believe that Protoss don't use Warp Prisms as much as they could, because they don't have to.
Protoss typically defeat the other races by having an overwhelming mass. Warp Prisms would be awesome for providing reinforcements, but a pylon is cheaper and less risky in all aspects. Right now, it doesn't make sense to go Warp Prisms unless you have been contained and can't maintain the gas necessary to produce Collosi, Void Rays, or Carriers to cover your ground army.
I'm just waiting for protoss's to start High Templar dropping. Wrecks worker lines, and late game, 2 templar aren't that large of a loss from your main force of HT and Colossi. What's more, you can hate a mobile warp in for HT, if yours get sniped.
Warp prisms should have more speed after upgrade not about 3.3 but something close to 4 or next upgrade for example 50/50 to cloak them for 10 seconds to sneak in enemy base or blink upgrade Thats my point
Eliminate both the warp prism and the mother ship. Bring back Arbiters.
Give cloaking ability to the warp prism.
On a serious note, some of the suggestions, like using prisms to hold HT's to avoid getting emp'd, are really really scary to think about doing as a Toss. The prism can be emp'd, and then it dies about as fast as a zergling. With 4 HT's in it this would cost 400 minerals and 600 gas. Is this actually worth it for the life expectancy of a zergling? I'll even grant that it might have the life expectancy of a marine with combat shields.
On May 09 2011 00:30 PopcornColonel wrote: I think the main problem for me is that it's WAY too risky. Zealot drops can be effective against lower level players, but when you get into higher leagues people pull their SCVs away before you can even get a kill in, and clearly zealots are mopped up by marauders/marines.
1 sentry (with at least 100 energy) with 3 zealots will stop them running as quick. Only them pulling before your units are out will complete avoid casualties.
Warp prisms have as much life as a shuttle did in bw and they can elevator units up a cliff using a glitch really quickly. They can transport an entire ground army in under 5 seconds. I'd like to see one medivac or one overlord do that.
A lot of people are saying that zealots are ineffective at killing workers due to being slow melee units.
However, protoss has forcefileds. I'm working on carrying one sentry from early game with high energy, dropping and ff'ing the workers into a bunch then warping in zealots on top of them. needs work but has been effective..
I have been playing around with this a lot lately.
You can only get out one warp prism + 2 observers before robo bay is done.
I have tried using them while going ht's and zealot charge for MUCH higher success.
Here are some replays, mind you that I'm new to this style, and am just playing around with it, so my build order will be a little rough. But I believe this is the only way to play the drop style.
speed prisms are pretty fast but the cost of getting the prism plus the speed is suicide. basically if your drop doesn't work you will most likely die.
But you could go stray away from robo tech all together and go templar but with the recent nurfs that isnt really viable. you need the collsi to hold the early pressures. i feel templars are late game units.
On May 03 2011 06:50 Existor wrote: If you lost pylon, you can bring prizm and deploy it, because it's a mobile pylon.
Plus, you can place any structure anywhere and then place pylon. So you will build pylon and gate/photon at same time
With this there are only a few times you lose a pylon, When you FE'd and blocked yourself off, even then it'd probably be better to kill something else. They're in you're base. If you really get to the point where they're in your base but you still have a chance in the game, a warp prism isn't going to help, the range on the power is too small and it'll die much too fast.
And really when would you want to build a gate and a pylon at the same time? The saved time only really does much in the early stages but then you wouldn't even have the tech and imo the 200 mineral investment isn't worth it.
I think that Protoss players tend to use Pylons for their harass instead of warp prisms. They don't need drops to harass an enemy third base when they can just leave a pylon somewhere nearby and then warp in zealots or DTs to be annoying. Pretty much the same thing for elevator play: protoss can warp units into a base from a low ground pylon and a high ground spotter. Colossus and Blink Stalkers, two core protoss units in most late games - can get into a main as a large force, and sentries can be warped in from a low ground pylon to lock the door.
Why spend 200 and robo time to make a warp prism when a 100 mineral pylon can do almost as much?
I think there are a number of contributing factors that make Warp Prism use rare:
1) Warp Prisms do not have a secondary function which is unrelated to dropping. Overlords provide supply and Medivacs provide healing, so players are going to be building these units even if they aren't planning to drop. A Protoss player who builds Warp Prisms is basically committing to the drop ahead of time.
2) The secondary function of the Warp Prism makes it ideal for launching a strong push, by dropping then warping in reinforcements. However, the Protoss player's ability to retreat after a drop is much lower. The Protoss player is essentially sacrificing those units in the hope that they cause enough damage to justify their cost. Terran and Zerg players can much more easily abort and retreat if a drop goes badly.
3) Protoss are generally much stronger when their units are in a big ball, rather than dispersed into small squads across the map. Harassment is a much bigger key to Terran victory than it is for Protoss. Less so for Zerg, which is why Overlord drops are much less frequent than Medivac drops. However, Zerg can benefit greatly from unit trading, so sacrificing units to a drop with the intention of macroing up a new army is a viable strategy for Zerg.
Protoss just doesn't have much to gain from performing drops.
I'm only at page eleven yet so don't blame me if I'm missing a point similar to mine.
So far people have generally been talking like dropping is the only use of a warp prism. However after reading this I've been trying to use them a bit more. What I've found is that even if I never use it for drops it still ends up paying for itself.
Instead of placing forward pylons that are likely to be picked off, I get a completely mobile pylon/elevator that can easily be brought with me wherever I go. It has been far better than a pylon because I can warp in more units on top of my army without worrying about collisions or pylon build times, even inside the enemy base, where it is significantly more difficult to place a pylon. Lack of speed just means that I can move at the same pace of the rest of my army without extra micro.
I am a gold player with a high mineral macro style which I am trying to adapt from Adel's PvP style, so I typically have a large amount of excess minerals by the time I build my robo (usually after four gates and a forge). Even building a robo bay directly after the facility I am able to chronoboost out both my observer (first) and my warp prism (second) which is usually time for my second push. I research speed when thermal lance is done (If the game gets to that point).
I'm sorry for not red all the 24 pages....but i still wanted to say something.
The Analysis of the Warp Prism is good, but if a unit is not being used much is not meaning that is useless.
About the warp Prism, we can say that i the best drop unit of all the game, or we can say it's the worst. It depends which side you spot. It has less hit point, yes! It needs a factory for being built, yes! However, it can drop an endless number of unit, since it's a mobile phylon, and you can warp all the unit you want for any purpose: proxy attack, stalkers harras, sneaky dt harras. The only thing important is if you want to return with your unit via ground or via air (in this case you must not produce too much)
you do know they made it 200 minerals instead of 100 mins 100 gas so the protoss can use its excessive amount of minerals since its a gas intensive race.
On May 10 2011 05:04 Minigun wrote: I have been playing around with this a lot lately.
You can only get out one warp prism + 2 observers before robo bay is done.
I have tried using them while going ht's and zealot charge for MUCH higher success.
Here are some replays, mind you that I'm new to this style, and am just playing around with it, so my build order will be a little rough. But I believe this is the only way to play the drop style.
I used a style similar to this a while ago, getting drops early and then getting fast storm behind it. I found that it was hard to hold against strong bio play and 1 base pushes, since warp prism+3-4 zealots is a large investment.
If you have any replays where you don't go 15 nexus and kill 5 marines for free I think those would be more instructive.
and there were people in bw that got a dropship. (or in otherwords invested on a starport + addon just for a dropship, nothing else the entire game). I guess its a good thing to get more ahead, when you won an early game fight. And a superb way to get ahead in multiple situation. I am happy that warp prism play is forgotten. I hated the ramp block when i made a fast expansion with heavy bunker play. Oh right and i loved the free win when a terran made this against me as toss hehe.
I guess warp prism is an easy way for a toss to kill their way up to diamond atleast just by using this 200 mineral drop ship. (other drops are more expensiv because they need to be filled, warp prism is actually the fastest cheapest drop unit ingame ^^)
I imagine the way drops will happen in the future for the warp prism to be most effective (aside from the warp prism 4 gate that I lost to for being an idiot:
The strongest drop I can conceive of is 3DT+1 sentry. But I think it's how you follow up with it that really the most powerful. Has anyone ever considered dropping the units on the move through the mineral line and then flying the WP to the expo to warp in units? It's a 2 pronged attack coming from one source, and even if they see it they will probably only react to one of the drops, at the same time you can choose to move out with your army and attack the third. After warping in units in the natural you can send the WP to join the main army for quicker reinforcements.
This is just my theorycrafting at work, you can turn 1 drop into 2 simultaneous drops.
EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/LRFda.png)
White-Ra have already given us a glimpse of that.
.
) Zealboming on Banes (even if its not that effectiv like the old BW Zealbombs on spidermines, and 2 Immo drops against Tech structures. 
