Warp Prisms and you. A guide to having safe Warping with your partner.

Did you know a transformed
Warp Prism can still
carry units?

A docile Warp Prism

OK boys and girl(lets be honest, theres not many of you out there in SC2), Its time to tell you about the Warp Gates and the Prisms...


When two opponents want to kill each other really passionately, they will sometimes resort to very invasive measures. The key is to test the waters and to make sure your opponent can handle that type of pressure, er wait I mean not handle it...oh boy....this isn't going well...


I used Warp Prisms back in the Silver league of the Beta. It seemed to be the only way I could in against a turtling Terran going mass Vikings. Recently I began using them again. A Zerg match I had earlier today inspired me to begin using them again. The same match I used for my Phoenix build in my post about New Protoss Builds for PvZ.


This match was an epic one. Ever since going 4 gate against Protoss I have begun having more success in this matchup, I know it's sad, but I don't have much choice at this level of play. My opponent snuck a Probe behind my line and near the not so natural expansion on Delta Quadrant. Then the war for the non natural expansion began. If he had done this at the front, I wouldn't have had such an easy time expanding, teching up, and feel safe in general.  Check the replay out, it was quite a good match.

Both Offensive and Defensive Forcefields at work here.

As soon as I fended off the Proxy push, I had an already setup Expo, and was building a Warp Prism with Blink to abuse his obvious high unit count. Protoss units are best stuck together. We don't have the numbers of units that Terran and Zerg often have at later stages in the game. A Protoss army consists of Quality over Quantity(when you think about it like this, those Forge upgrades suddenly seem a lot better huh?). So I loaded up a few zealots and flew to his not so natural expansion, and warped in 7 Blink Stalkers on the cliff over looking it.

Blink Stalkers in combination with Warp Prisms are a very useful.

I waited till a 2nd round of warp ins were ready and brought those in as well. I blinked 14 stalkers into his mineral line and cleaned it up, when his units came over to defend, I blinked back up, waited for them to move and blinked them back in. I then sent my main army to his front and it became a two pronged attack. Shortly after he GG'd.


This next one was on Metalopolis. We spawned in close positions by air. However it was another PvP so using Phoenix's were not an option. When you are close positions by air, utilizing Warp Prisms should be a must, like using Phoenix's or Void Rays against Zerg in the same spawn points.

Did you know you can cut off an army using this choke point? 

The Warp Prism came in handy, and I only used it when I knew my opponent had a Sentry at the ramp waiting to FF me the moment my Army was halfway up. I quickly macro'd up and got a Prism with about 7 Gateways to support it. I knew he had an expansion so I Warped in 2 rounds of units. Notice a pattern? when you warp in units, you want to make sure they are going to do damage and be big enough to warrant bringing the entirety of his force to hold it off, so waiting 20 seconds to warp in another round is worth it.

What warping in behind a shrouded area of the map looks like.

Once he moved back I moved in and took out his expansion, while at the same time, I took my third. My force in the back didn't do much damage, in fact we were on more even terms after that exchange, however I was going on 3 bases while he was now back on one. So in the grand scheme of things, it was a great exchange for me.

Summary
So to sum up, Warp Prisms are best used when your opponent does not know about them, and unlike drops they can transport more units into the base. This is why it is so important to wait for another round of warp ins, or to wait until you have more than 4 gateways. If the main has cliffs you can abuse, use them in combination with Blink Stalkers. Delta Quadrant is a great example of this.

New Protoss Builds Part 1 of 3 (PvP)

I have found a few new builds I have been utilizing since I have started laddering again (27 Wins, 32 Losses so far). This is what I have discovered in the Matchups. The one thing I have learned this past week, and after all my thinking of Protoss tactics without actually playing, is that Protoss are best when they have 2 bases supporting them. Our units take very long to build and are very expensive but very fast and powerful when we finally get them out. So it only makes sense that we need a very good economy to help run it all.

PvP

This matchup is so weird to me. It always throws me for a loop. Here are a few examples of the games I played. At first, I tried going something other than 4 gate against Toss, trying to find out what they were doing then do the appropriate build, however I soon found out that most other Toss as this level of play was doing the same thing in most cases. In fact, I was always beat when the opponent did a build without reacting to mine, thus my build was slightly behind and I ultimately lost. The PvP matchup seems more and more like a staring contest, seeing who will "Blink" first so someone has an advantage.

2 gate Rush vs Fast Forge

This match I saw him have 2 gates really early. My build always gets a Core first. If I see those 2 gate ways early enough, I have enough time to grab a Forge and place a few Cannons down while also grabbing a Sentry to FF the ramp to trap some of his Zealots as I pick them off. I quickly transitioned into a 4 gate and apply the pressure on him until I finally push into his base and win.

4 gate vs Cannon defense

This game was odd. I held my own against constant pressure only using Cannons and enough units from 3 gates. I was very surprised it worked and the only reason I won was because my opponent didn't expand, which is a common epidemic for lower league Toss. They have this mindset that the 4 gate is a Win all Build, and its not. Its fundamental weakness is your constantly building units and not generating enough to expand.

Colossus will rip through any army of equal size.

Fast 3 Colossus with a Council as a fake out

This guy was very smart. I scouted a Council and a Robotics Facility and immediately thought he was going Immortal/Zealot with Charge as I saw many Zealots already. I began to get an expansion while also going for some Immortals as well with Stalkers to kite the Zealots. Yes You can still effectively kite Zealots even with Charge. However, when he pushed he had 3 Colossus and I had just expanded. It was gg shortly thereafter.

So this is what I have taken out of all this. 4 Gate is still the best way to go in this matchup. The fast 3 Colossus could have been easily taken down if I had gone 4 gate and applied some early pressure. However it is still important to grab a Robotics Facility at some point to grab an Observer in case there are Dark Templars coming out, which happened at some point in another game where it was 4 gate vs 4 gate. Most PvP matches don't last very long as one of the players will quickly gain a disadvantage and the other will take that advantage.

Next will be PvZ. Probably my favorite matchup.

When to.....

Ever wonder when you should be doing ______?

I do. I have a terrible time knowing when to start teching up.

I typically start with 4 gate and get some units up. once 8-12 units are up I begin pushing out. I poke in, see if those initial units are still their, if not I know hes teching up and wont have many units. Thats a clear sign for me to do one of two things. Expand or drop 1 of 4 tech buildings, a Forge, Robotics Facility, Stargate, or Twilight Council. Lets assume I am up against a Terran player. I tend to Expand because it is relatively safe if my army is outside his base and preventing him from moving out. With only  half a dozen marines at his cliffs, that tells me hes either going for some tanks, or Banshees. More than likely its Banshees.

Do I drop a Robotics Facility down instead of expanding?

No, I still will expand, because getting that 2nd base up and going while preventing him from getting his is so important. I'm now in a position to know what hes probably doing, and I have now limited his choices. He can either continue with Banshees and get cloak and probably hold his ramp off if I decide to push in again, or make some more ground forces to push me back. Both are perfectly reasonable. Most players I have faced tend to continue with their Banshees and get cloak. Its important to poke up his ramp to see whats their, as if some Marauders suddenly pop up, I know hes looking to buy time before cloak is ready and hes going to make a push a bit later with not only a force, but also Banshees.. That means I need to have dropped a Robotics Facility sometime after my Nexus gets placed.

See how important Scouting is? I began scouting more frequently and accurately because I primarily play in a reactionary way to my opponent. Because I do this, I need to be knowing what my opponent is doing pretty often. If I see some heavy Marauder play I need to grab an Immortal or a lot of Stalkers ASAP. An observer would also help as well as these provide a way of keeping track of your opponent without having to sacrifice the occasional probe up his ramp.

So what things do you wait for either in your build order, unit count, or what your opponent does to justify teching up?

Jungle Basin

This map has probably given me more trouble than any of the others. I have played on this map 5 times since its release and have only had one win on it. My usual strategy is to 4 gate or grab a Robo and do some early aggression, but I am quickly finding out that the positioning of the bases and their ramps have made early aggression easily defended against.

The natural expansion is also easily defended and hard to harass as the entrance ramp to the main is so close to the natural ramp so there is no reason to take it early. With a Sentry or two you can easily prevent your opponent from sneaking in. Terran Siege Tanks can easily defend both from the same spot. There is also not much room in the back of each main to hide air units like in Desert Oasis. So a frontal assault and harassment are both easily negated, so how do you defeat your opponent without relying to heavily on either tactic? In most cases your opponent will not try to do some massive attack early on, instead relying on Void Rays, drops, or Banshees to keep you on your toes or catch you unprepared and finish the game early.

As a Protoss, I realized that I too can take that an early expansion and that Colossus cost only slightly less than Carriers but require the same amount of tech structures to create. Why not go Carriers? If you watched Day(9)'s daily on how effective Carriers can be. People didn't realize that each Interceptor does 16 damage (2 shots 8 each). The majority of my opponents went primarily ground assault forces, very little anti air was ever made. With the distances between the bases so far, and an expansion easily defended, there is no reason to skip the initial tech and go straight for Carriers.

This reasoning applies to all races. On this particular map, take that natural early and get some more advanced tech, you will be surprised how fast you can get it and how easily accessible it is.

Back to 4 Gating

So I find myself going back to four gating. My three Gate Robo build was not working out as well as I had hoped. After three week of not playing Starcraft 2, going back to four gating just seemed natural. Its an easy build:

4 Warp Gate Build Order


9 Pylon
13 Gateway
14 Assimilator
16 Pylon
17 Cyber Core
19 Gateway
20 Stalker
23 Gateway
24 Pylon
24 Gateway

By the time you hit your 26th supply(provided you only build 1 Gateway unit and are constantly building probes) Warp Gate tech is ready and you will need to produce mass amounts of Pylons. I like to drop 3 more at once to expand my supply to 50. Then start warping in units and gradually be placing Pylons down as 4 gateway units count as 1 Pylon worth of supply. This is also a good time to put a proxy Pylon somewhere.

Chrono Boosts
Chrono Boosts play a big part in any Protoss Build. No matter what opening build you are doing, you should be going for Warp Gate research. It is the cheapest research with the biggest benefits. It cuts training down by five seconds per gateway unit and allows any Gateway unit to be warped in to your Pylon influence in four seconds. Ideally you can use 4 Chrono Boosts on Warp Gate before it finishes. Each one cuts 10 seconds off the time. However, if your timing isn't perfect you can end up wasting half of the 4th one so I tend to stick with 3. By doing this I can also use 3 Chrono Boosts on my Nexus as well.

Poking and Scouting
While you are getting your base setup, send a probe every now and again to poke into the base, yes you will lose a probe but you will be able to tell what his unit comp is or isn't. In my latest match, my opponent went for heavy Stalkers and very little Zealots, I saw this by simply suiciding a probe onto his ramp. So I quickly put down a Twilight Council and started researching Charge. Zealots with just the movement speed increase move almost as fast as a stalker.

What to transition into.
Before transitioning into Colossus or Voidrays or whatever, you need to take an expansion. Having two bases mining is so important in Starcraft 2. You will want to take you small force in and cause some trouble, make him think twice about moving out. This will allow a safe expansion to be warping in. Once you have two bases its time to decide what to do next. Two bases can support up to 8 Warp Gates and a Forge. However this way leaves yourself vulnerable to Cloaked units. You may want to grab a Robotics Facility to grab an Observer. This will also open up a transition into Colossus. You can make one Robotics Facility and get up to 6 Warp gates for faster unit production. Picking up a Twilight Council as well to grab Charge or Blink is also useful as the building alone allows you to research more effective armor and weapons upgrades.

There you have it, the 4gate build order. It is a heavy macro oriented build. To learn more about macro and how to master it check out my post about the subject here.

1v1, 1 v 1, Protoss, Starcraft 2, SC2, Starcraft2, Protoss Build Order, 4gate, 4 Gate, Chrono, Chrono boost, Chronoboost, Nexus, Pylon, Pylons, Supply, Supply Blocked, Stalker, Zealot, Core, Cybernetics Core, Warp Gate, Gateway, Assimilator,Strategy Game, 3 Gate Robo, 3gate robo, 3gaterobo, Probes, Probe, 4 warpgate build order, 4gate build order, Twilight Council, Charge, Blink, Blink Stalkers, Stargate, Star gate, Observer, Macro

Last few Days...

The last few days I've been trying to get back into multi-player. I have been a little wary to get back into it largely due to having unreliable internet and computer at home. I decided to go for it.

Ive played 6 games in 2 days and won 4. I am really proud of myself :) I lost my first one and almost gave up for the night, but I kept my determination up knowing that if I lose again I probably will stop for the night. I had botched my my first games' build order up so I had it coming.

I fended off the dreaded Zergling rush and a 2 gateway cheese in my own base. By far the most entertaining match was against a Terran where I catch him completely off guard and annihilate his MMM ball with 4 tanks without him even shooting at me. And no I didn't use air units, I used Zealots and Stalkers. It was completely intentional and I kept in mind what my opponent was thinking the whole time instead of what I needed to be doing. I waited until he commanded his troops to move while not in siege mode, little did I know, he told them to move and not attack move! It was a lucky break and I quickly finished him off. I am going to be doing a post about it soon analyzing what I did and why I did it, and why it worked.