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.

Probes and Chronoboost

Probes are the unit that always gets the first Chronoboost of the game and recently I heard of a post on Team Liquid about the efficiency of workers and minerals. However I could not find this post by searching the usual avenues. So I decided to do a few quick tests of my own..

Blizzard tells us three per patch, and after doing some research, this isn't the case. In fact, the number is lower. So Chronoboosting probes is beneficial early on, or during Maynarding(the process of taking half your probes and transferring them to your expansion). But there comes a point where Chronoboosting your probes helps you in no way relating to mineral collection. Here are the numbers:

The Test
My tests consisted of 1 minute intervals with 5 probes at a time.

Beep beep

5   Probes can collect 280 give or take 5.
10 Probes can collect 560 give or take 5.
15 Probes can collect 825 give or take 10.
20 Probes can collect 1040 give or take 20.
25 Probes can collect 1100 give or take 40.

So we can see, the most beneficial number of Probes to have mining is about 20. Any more and the number becomes erratic sometimes going up 100 a minute, sometimes only increasing by about 20-40 a minute. This is because all the Probes are trying to find empty mineral patches. I have even read that some Probes at this amount will bounce from patch to patch for up to 30 seconds without ever working. Therefore, Chronoboost no longer becomes useful on Probes after 20 Probes have been assigned to minerals. However this would change if you were doing a Fast Expand build.

Summary
20 Probes per expansion on the mineral line. Do not Chronoboost Probes after 20, which I believe is around the time the Core is going up if you had been constantly building Probes.An easy way to find out how many you have is to box your Probes and if there are two and a half lines of Probes exactly in the unit bar, thats exactly how many is most efficient.

This is what 20 Probes look like.

This also helps later on so when you see you have 60 Probes and only two expansions, you need to expand simply to be making more money.

I have heard several people say that you need to be constantly building Probes and never stop. But one Probe costs not only 50 minerals, but also 1 food. I have seen some pro games were the Probes made was around 90, thats half of your supply and at least 12 Stalkers worth of units. Meaning your army size will not be as strong compared to someone who only made 60 workers. Yes having extra can help you later on if you decide to go for 4 bases, or they do a drop in your mineral line, but thats what Cannons and keeping a good eye out for enemy movement is for. Chronoboost usually lasts for 2 rounds of Probe production on a single building So you may only need to use Chronoboost 7-10 times on your Nexus before needing to switch Chronoboost targets.

I hope this was helpful. For Terrans and Zerg, the Same rule applies to efficiency, however for Terrans, Mules take priority on mineral Patches over an SCV, meaning they will always work the same patch so make sure to assign them one of the patches that are closer to your Command Center.

A Mental Tactic

After watching the Day(9) Daily about the contaminate, it got me thinking about other ways to mentally screw with your opponent. We saw that Contaminate can really screw with a persons macro, which is huge! So what can Protoss do to mess with an opponents mind?

Well for one thing, our options for some effective early harassment are limited. The only real unit that is fast and able to due extra damage to Lightly armored units are the Phoenix, and they can only attack air and a limited number ground targets. The best they can do is harass mineral lines or snipe Overlords/Overseers. So I began looking into Protoss mechanics and how the race differs from the other two. So I thought of the Warping Mechanic, and how it can help Protoss develop some mental tactics against their opponents. In the past I had one opponent who did something similar to what I am about to propose, and I cannot wait to try it in a real match.

What this player did was setup a line of Pylons from his base to about 1/2 to 2/3 to mine. In an effort to allow for quick reinforcements if he is ever pushed back while also creating an advanced warning and scout system to know when I am making my push forward. It also buys him time to regroup, as a Pylon in the middle of nowhere is more threatening than an army retreating. However the amount of minerals lost if you have to retreat can cost you quite a bit. So here is my variation of this tactic.

What if instead of creating a line of Pylons, you actually place proxy Pylons in key places that aren't normally scouted or maneuvered through. It would really benefit someone later on when control of the map is more important. The enemy could come out at places you would not expect to have seen. For example, on Xel'naga Caverns, you could place a Pylon near the visibility reeds at the natural expansion, one at the expansion behind the rocks, and one near the other end of the back door trail behind the visibility reeds. This gives 3 additional attack routes that are not commonly scouted or moved through. It will cause your opponent to scout around and find these Pylons if he indeed realizes that is what you are doing. Warp Prisms work with this as well because they can maneuver, however, they cost twice as much, have a smaller warp field, and do not offer supply.

It is also important to remember that this will not work effectively on every map. Lost Temple for example gives very easily defend-able attack routes that allow a mobile force to move around the map quickly, but hard to implement this tactic as there are no visibility issues or alternate routes. Metalopolis would actually be a good map to implement this on in almost any of the spawn locations, as well as Steppes of War, Shakuras Plateau.

**Edit: After writing this post I stumbled across an article about the new 1v1 maps and discovered that several of the maps I mentioned are not even on the ladder map list**

Back to Macro, Back to Hokeys, Back to Starcraft...

Hey guys! Sorry I haven't been writing alot. Real life required my attention for a bit and I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things... I have not played a ladder game in 6 weeks, instead I have been concentrating on getting my groove back with the MultiTasking Trainer by Stet_tcl. It has really helped me realize what my game play should look like. I have even used it to prefect my own build orders so I don't get bogged down with new elements. Over the next week I will be posting a few blogs on my progress as well as an update when I finally feel comfortable enough to play a few ladder games... If you want to use this multiTasking trainer map, search for Multi in the map screen, and find the one published by Beefheart. Now on the the real purpose of the post!

http://day9tv.blip.tv/file/4712303/

That link goes straight too one of the most helpful videos I have ever watched. Being shown what to do and what not to do with your hands is so huge...How would we know if we were doing something right if someone much better than us didn't show us in one way or another? I have taken to watching Huks stream occasionally to watch his hotkey setup. Its really helped as I am beginning to understand why certain groups are the hotkey to certain keys. Easy access as well as priority come into effect and you quickly have to determine whats most important. My trouble with hotkeys is how to easily access buttons 6-8 effectively. Currently this is my setup:

• 1 main army, all grouped together(I know thats bad)
• 2 I keep open so when i do start grouping my stalkers separately, they go here.
• 3 is for my initial scouting Probe and later on as my caster group or Warp Prism for drops.
• 4 is my Nexus.
• 5 is for my Warpgates. Some people use W but I believe W focuses on the gates instead of just selecting them.

I try to use 6 for my Robo, but its hard to press that key smoothly. I also need to find a key to use for upgrades. either with the forge or whatever building I'm currently researching with to help me keep track. Getting hotkeys right is the first of the things I'm working to get better...

Anyone have any suggestions?

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.

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Mothership knows best...

So the Mothership has to be one of those units that are difficult to add to any build order or situation. They cost more than a Battlecruiser, have a built in cloaking field, can move and fire, and have 2 spells, Mass Recall, and Vortex neither of which can damage another unit. The Mothership acts a lot like the Arbiter from Brood War, however the Mothership packs quite a bigger punch and take much more punishment.

 The issue with the Mothership is that a lot of resources have to be spent just to get the tech into it. Not including the Cybernetics Core, it would take 450 Minerals and Gas to be able to build it. Add another 400 to build it and add 100 for the pylon to supply it. It’s a very expensive investment.  Now I haven’t tested this but people are saying in a battle against one Battlecruiser, the Battlecruiser would win.

The most popular ability it has is the Mass Recall which can instantly teleport all your units in a given area to your Mothership. Great for warping in behind those heavily entrenched Terran Turtles we keep seeing. But is the Mothership useful in other situations?


Here is an example of a match that I used this in. Mothership Madness

When a Terran masses 10+ Battlecruisers, how can they be countered? A Carrier Mothership Armada is a good way to take them down, but by the time you find out they are building Battlecruisers, you don’t have time to amass that big of a force. Your only option? Use your Motherships’ Vortex ability to thin the lines for a short amount of time, giving your anti-air force time to pick them off. If the Battlecruisers decide to run, then the ones trapped in the vortex can be easily surrounded and picked off optimally.

I have a hard time using them in any other match ups. The cloaking field can be countered by having a detector in the area. It can’t detect cloaked units itself so bringing an Observer with it is a must. It can easily be countered by multiple units such as Stalkers, Marines or Hydralisks. It’s slow moving and fires slowly. None of its abilities actually do damage. On top of all this, we can only build one. Now I’m no advocate of a super unit for every playable race, I’ve played Red Alert and Command and Conquer and know what that can do to a game. But some more usability needs to be added to the Mothership.

One thing I’ve heard being circulated around is to add the ability for units to be warped in to the Mothership, This sounds very interesting. We take the abilities of a Warp Prism and take away the transport. I think giving them the ability to power buildings is a bit too much, but perhaps the field is automatically generated like the cloaking field. This sounds like a good idea, but Starcraft 2 is still in its early stages. We probably haven’t seen all the many uses for the Mothership yet, and it will probably take awhile before we will.