Targeting Phase Prisms....like target pylons in sc1?

[Meloku]

The way they showed the phase prism powering the off line cannons in the demo was cool as hell, but think about it; did you EVER target the pylon first?

Was it worth it to run your men through the firing cannons, taking hits from all 3, just to get the pylon down? I always found it more effective to take out the cannons. They had little HP and did a ton of damage. Pylons were always my lowest priority target. I will admit, there are a few exceptions to this, but in 95% of cases, players saved the pylons for last.

the phase prism still has many uses, but I don't think we will be seeing what happened in the gameplay trailer too much.

Thoughts?

[Gorythax]

True, Oh so very true.

But my guess is, in Starcraft 2, with all the cliff jumping stuff, people will have more opportunities to target the pylons, and will use them to power down the whole base.
So I guess that that utility is pretty useful. Besides, you don't get it at the start of the game, and when you use it to power up, you don't Need pylons as well, so it's sort of a mobile pylon.
Don't forget it can also warp your guys.

[FlyingTiger]

haha it depends on the pylon placement (i.e. any structures blocking the path to the pylon), but yea I really never attack the pylon and plus the photon cannon hp is soo low, that it ain't worth it unless a pylon powered like 12 photon cannons which is really stupid in the first place.

Yea I think the phase prism will have its purpose. Like if you are the stupid person that put a pylon to 12 photon cannons, then you will have backup power. Also the phase prism will allow teleportation too from structures. In addition, it acts as a transport too. So in my opinion, yes, I think it will be used a lot.

[ArchLimit]

Actually I think it all depends. Back when I umm *cough*massed carriers*cough* I MIGHT have maybe d-webbed the cannons and taken out pylons. Maybe. :-[

But yea, if your using smaller ground units like marines or what not, taking out the cannons would be much easier, and again, depends on how many pylons are actually powering that area.

[Ghost]

Pylons are first priority target for me, without power the photon cannons cant fire, without power buldings cannot operate, without pylons they cant make reinforcments.

"As a rule of thumb" i only target pylons if there are less than 2 pylons for every three photon cannons.

The new ability of the phase prism i think is rather useless as the prism has relatively low hp (100hp 40 shield) so i would just destroy the phase prism, this changes if the toss brings in 3-4 to make up for the dead pylon.

[Lemonparty]

photon cannons : 100 armor 100 hp
pylon : 200 armor 300 hp

[Major Willy]

Armor? It's shields.

Pylons actually have 300 shields and 300 health.

[Ghost]

photon cannons : 100 armor 100 hp
pylon : 200 armor 300 hp


Ok, whats your point?

[Gorythax]

His point is it's faster to kill the photons, but then again, as Ghost said, if there's 1 pylon per batch of 3, then it's the same result (100/100 * 3 = 300). And yes, I calculated the loss of men.

[Lemonparty]

Yeah Plasma Shield, I prefer saying armor, just like I prefer saying mana instead of ''psi''.
and yeah that's my point, it depends how many pylons per cannons there are. Sometimes it's preferable to go straight for the cannons, but it depends. So for people that always target pylons, it's a bad idea (which doesn't apply to you). I'd prefer have my destroyed though. I can simply make another one while it's under attack, which is cheaper than making 3-4-5 new cannons =]. But it never happens :(

[UchihaItachi0129]

i target pylons first. but that's how i play. and most of the time i make my opponent leave without even hitting their pylons because i love dropping reavers/tanks/lurkers/bats/high templars(storms) right behind the minerals. then after that i let loose on their CC/Nexus/Hatchery(Lair or Hive) and then most of the time they just leave. but if the game lasts longer then i go for pylons.

[DontHate]

His point is it's faster to kill the photons, but then again, as Ghost said, if there's 1 pylon per batch of 3, then it's the same result (100/100 * 3 = 300). And yes, I calculated the loss of men.

if there are 3 cannons and 1 pylon it would probably be easier to attack the cannons because after you kill one of the cannons the damagre rate is reduced by 1/3

[mc2]

Last time I played my enemy placed all the cannons on one side of the pylon's energy field, so I easily dropped reavers on the other side away from the cannons and took out the pylons. My reavers were unharmed and the 8 cannons were unpowered. It really depends on the situation, like ghost said, if the opponent has 1 pylon powering 4 gateways, then I'll take out the pylons first to stop them making reinforcements. But usually yeah, taking out the cannons are easier

[overmind]

yamato cannon the pylons.

[10-Neon]

It depends on how many Pylons are powering how many cannons. It also depends on the other things the Pylons are powering, and if I want to deny my enemy some psi or the ability to rebuild the defense.

Sometimes I just flat-out ignore the defense, run past it, taking some losses, and proceed to murder Probes.

[Proxy-serva]

no i havent target the pylons because often polayers make 2 pylons for some cannons and ich overrun they with hydras or destroy they with guardians.but most i drop with out attacking cannons or pylons

[Remy]

When it's only about pylon vs cannon it's always cannon first for me. 99% of the time it is strategically unwise to attack the pylons first.

1 pylon does not equal to 3 cannons btw. First of all, someone already pointed out that for every cannon you take down it's one less cannon that's firing at you. But even if we put that aside and compare their stats only, 1 pylon still does not equal to 3 cannons. Pylons have 1 armor, cannons have zero.

There are some situations where taking out pylons could do you some good such as when only one or two power other buildings, such as gateways. But even then, I usually would rather take out key tech(pre-req) buildings that a Toss player usually wouldn't have more than one of, such as cybernetics core, templar archive, or citadel of adun. That messes up their tech tree way more than a few lost pylons. I honestly never found myself able to shut down enemy unit production complete by destroying plyons in evenly matched games, that's a low priority target.

So to answer the opening post, I don't think I'll ever find myself using phase prisms to provide backup pylon power. I would use them for remote locations where there weren't plyons in the first place though. Well, that's if I ever do finally get around to playing some serious Protoss, that could be years.

[brules]

mb taking down pylons would be more useful if one of the new terran upgrades were that ghosts could lockdown buildings?

[Lord David]

Now that's a silly remark if I ever heard one. Why would you want to lockdown a Pylon? Phase Prism, yes... but Pylon? That's just silly. ;)

Ok, all joking aside, it usually depends, if a player only has one Pylon providing power to several cannons then why not? (Of course any smart player would make a few Pylons to support cannons) If it were Pylon(s) powering a building, then by all means, the Pylon(s) first.

[Gorythax]

he did mean the building. Lockdown the photons and then kill the pylong and Then kill the photons. Do that if you're terran, if you play toss, send corsairs, and if you're Zerg, send all your overlords over the photons first (like 100 of them, no kidding) and then send your troops. My friend did that once anc completely pwned the possibly best base I ever had. Trust me, it works, and my bases are not crap.

Anyways... all talking SC1 here, in SC2, there could be other stuff..

[paragon]

Depends on how many pylons are powering how many cannons. it also depends on the other things that the pylons are powering, and if I want to deny my enemy some psi or the ability to rebuild the defense or not be able to produce more units.

Sometimes I go in the back door with shuttles and kill the probes and don't worry about the defenses.

[Gorythax]

Covert Ops ftw. But seriously, I think the lockdown could be useful to get thru, but not for destroying, because it would obviously take a number of Ghosts and other units to destroy them, which would take a considerable about of time when you can just do what paragon does.

[brules]

Covert Ops ftw. But seriously, I think the lockdown could be useful to get thru, but not for destroying, because it would obviously take a number of Ghosts and other units to destroy them, which would take a considerable about of time when you can just do what paragon does.


true, might be too overpowered as well - lockdown works so well against the protoss

[thrif]

I only targeted the pylons if I had some heavy firepower, otherwise the pylons were too though to be focused down at first.

[Ghost]

I normally scarab or siege pylons to save my infantry trouble when assaulting the base directly.

[Dreadnought]

If there are 5 or more cannons near the pylon then i destroyed it. Otherwise its much better to take out the cannons. 3 cannons = same total HP as pylon. But when you destroy individual cannons your reducing the damage your units are taking.

[Major Willy]

I just nuke the whole cluster of Pylons and Cannons then have my army that was waiting nearby run in for cleaning.

[[LightMare]]

well, with a recon mission, if i was engadged, i would target pylons then fall back till i send more reinforcements.

[for-glory]

so i dont think the phase prism isnt suppose to replace the pylon as such but suppose to bring the abilities that pylon has...such as warping units into battle (it creates that energy network or wutevr its called).

The phase prism maybe in a last ditch could be used to replace a pylon but i think they are too useful to waste unless its gg.

Uhh depending on map and number of players would dictate whether or not to go for pylons or cannon for me. raping probes is prolly the most annoying thing i can think of doing early game (in that case f*** pylons and cannons)

[kingsky123]

i actually target pylons in sc1 if they only build like one and supports like all the produciton facilities. really ****s people up

[marinepower]

he did mean the building. Lockdown the photons and then kill the pylong and Then kill the photons. Do that if you're terran, if you play toss, send corsairs, and if you're Zerg, send all your overlords over the photons first (like 100 of them, no kidding) and then send your troops. My friend did that once anc completely pwned the possibly best base I ever had. Trust me, it works, and my bases are not crap.

Anyways... all talking SC1 here, in SC2, there could be other stuff..


Does anyone remember that VERY short period of time where you could edit any unit's properties as well as main weapon due to a glitch in a patch?
Anyways, in regard to this if you made the ghost have the actual lockdown ability as its main weapon, it could lock down a handfull of buildings including missile turrets, photon cannons, pylons, and assimilators/refineries. For all we know they could be bringing this skill back, since it was obviously thought of when SC1 was being made.

[Gorythax]

that would be way too buffed... I mean think of it. Send 12 ghosts and in a matter of time a Toss base is totally locked down.

[Meloku]

then again, they also do little to no damage and are killed easily.

[Major Willy]

Why would you build Phase Prisms instead of Pylons for keeping your buildings online?

[Ghost]

Yea, they have like half the hp. They're only last reasource.

[Mrmcmadman]

Perhaps they realized that the pylons were too durable and nerfed them, making the pylon targeting strategy more feasible,

[marinepower]

Welcome to the forums, madman, but no i don't think that the pylons will lose so much hp that they will be the first priority target, as they power all of the protoss buildings. This being the case, if the enemy manages to drop in a protoss base, the units will be able to disable many structures and make the protoss lose a lot of PSI a lot more quickly.

[Remy]

Welcome to the forums Mr.McMadman.

I would have to disagree with you somewhat Marinepower.  I actually have also considered the possibility of Blizzard dropping the shield/hp/armor of pylons myself.

I personally believe that the shield/hp/armor of pylon vs cannon in SC1 to be a design flaw.  It's like they introduced a certain gameplay element in which you can take out pylons to disable the cannons, or all other buildings for that matter, yet 99% of the times it was not strategically prudent to do so.

Pylons don't have to be easier to take out than cannons, but damn were they some tough nuts to crack.  Pylons really need to be a wee bit weaker.  Weakening pylons a bit has two advantages to SC.

First of all, it introduces a working anti Protoss strategy and adds yet more flavor to SC multiplayer.  That's what it should've been in SC1, now it'll work like it's supposed to.

Secondly, it further enhances Terran's racial identity in that it will be the only race not vulnerable to supply hunt strat, but its buildings steadily degenerate until self-destruction when HP fall in the red zone.  This will make Terran even more unique and different from P/Z.

If Blizzard hasn't already touched on it, they really should take it into consideration.  Since they are looking into making each race more unique as well as adding more strategic options in multiplayer, this will definitely help, as long as they don't overdo it.

[Ych9]

I think that the Pylons is going to get a nerf in their HP. Actually I think it already has because if you paid attention to the gameplay Video, the Reapers took out that Pylon rather quick. But when it starts to take on the Nexus, it seemed like forever and yet, it hasn't even taken out all of itz shields yet. So definetely from the gameplay video, I think that the Pylons HP has been nerfed to some extent.

[Remy]

I tried to make that same observation, but I couldn't come to a conclusion. I'm too lazy to watch that part over too many times before I find out more about reapers.

I definitely don't disagree with you though, Ych9. I still think it's more likely than not that's it's what Blizz is doing.

[Ych9]

I totally agree with you Remy about the Pylon issue.
I think Blizzard intended the Pylon thing in SC1 to be a weakness for the Protoss, in that, if you manage to take out some key Pylons, you can basically shut down the Protoss base. But Pylons were simply too tough to take down, that it really isn't worth the time to try and take them out.

I just hope that Blizzard understands this problem and is really nerfing the Pylon HP. Because IMO, Pylon's are suppose to distingush the Protoss's supply building between the other races. You can say, it is one of the Protoss's weakness to have the Pylon thingy. But yet, the problem is, it is impossible to take advantage of that weakness simply because they are too tough to take down. So hopefully, from the gameplay video, what I saw wasn't a mistake about the Pylon having weaken HP. :)

[Remy]

I think we're on the same page. I think most people are, or at least probably will be once they get around to think about it.

In RPGs(other cases out there too but this is the best example), it is ideal for warrior classes to tank the hits and soak the damage while other flimsier classes dish out the damage. On the contrary, to take out a group, it's usually best to target individuals other than the tank, because tanking classes were designed to soak damage better. It was kind of like that with SC1 plyons and cannons.

Pylons remsembled the warrior class in every way. Higher HP pool for high durability, and armor for damage reduction. While there was that little thing about being able shut down all cannons in plyon range in one move, pylons were just too good at soaking damage. Even with the pylon power factor, it kinda defeats the purpose when taking out each individual cannon(attacker or damage dealing classes in RPGs) was still more efficient.

After all, it's usually a bad idea to target the tanking warrior class first while taking hits from the real damage dealers the whole time. The pylon power was the only thing to turn that formula around, but only if it could be achieved fast enough to take less total damage than killing cannons individually. It wasn't the case in SC1.

[Dreadnought]

Gosh i remember i tried to take a pylon one time with like 40 zergings against 5 photon cannons. the cannons won!
After that i always target cannons...

[Major Willy]

Pylons had 600 health total. They survived nukes and several yamatos. That is NEVER fun with Terran.

[Remy]

The 1 armor vs cannon's 0 armor is also a big factor, although not in the case of nukes and yamas.

Armor does come in to play with nukes but not really in the case of pylons. It is what allows BCs to survive direct nukes though.

Hmmm, I think I can already hear PowerkickasS coming this way to throw out his usual "Remy you got an official source for that?" Damn it...

[Peter.Hong]

Odds are pylons will definitely be nerfed in SCII because hence the Phase Prisms. Most likely they realized that the potential of an advantage of taking out key pylons devastated the protoss a little too much. Therefore to make up for the new advantage that the other two races gained over the protoss the phase prisms were brought in to provide a backup source of energy since to build a pylon it took awhile too. It would have such a large immediate effect if the pylons became weaker and not have a backup source except to build a new pylon that the phase prisms provide a cushion to that enemy strategy. A pro will no doubt never have his base run out of PSI to run the buildings. A noob can be exploited though so this just expands the horizons for more game play and versatile strategic planning.

[Remy]

I would disagree somewhat.  I actually think it's the other way around.

Someone at Blizzard came up with the cool ass port-a-pylon idea where you can use as backup power or allow instant building at remote locations.  Then they sat down and said the instant power for remote building is cool but why the hell would you need backup power?  So they soon realized that although an interesting part of Protoss design at early stages, it was a design flaw that pylons were made too resilient for such a strategic aspect to be taken advantage of in real games.  So, they would nerf the pylon.

I doubt the nerfing of the pylon gave rise to the phase prism, or we would've had a pylon nerfing patch somewhere before.  Whether a small nerf, or too much of a nerf that was brought back to normal immediately with a followup patch, we would've seen something.  I definitely think if pylons are nerfed, it will be to justify the existence of phase prisms and allow strategic elements associated with it.

[Peter.Hong]

Thats possible too looking at what you wrote since in a way the Phase Prisms replace the arbiter's porting ability. However, I don't think that they would change something to make a use for a new ability. The idea of the prism being able to provide power would've been easier to remove then to add in a new ability and make changes to something thats always been imo. People have been complaining about the difficulty in destroying a pylon for awhile too so that could've brought about the changes too. I think it would be easier to add in something new to adjust for something old rather than adding adjusting the old to give purpose for something new. But thats just my opinion

[Remy]

I think the pylon situation's been known for the longest time, yet Blizz didn't touch it.  They came up with the phase prism unit design but realized some of its aspects are made useless by default right from the start because of the design flaw in pylons.

I think if adjusting pylon was the main focus and Blizzard had it in mind to do so, it would've been done a long time ago.  It would've been nice to have made it a valid strategic element back then over the 9 or so years of SC running.  The adjustment could've been small as to not put Toss players in the pit.  But it has never been done, because they didn't want to or consciously decided not to, not because the idea just hit them now.  But with the new phase prism idea, it forces them to tweak the pylon to make phase prisms fully viable, at the same time it provided Blizzard an opportunity to touch on an old issue.

[kehmdaddy]

I'd target the Phase Prisms because they're also shuttles! And if they set up the psi field near your base, you could be facing a constant stream of reinforcements.

[Peter.Hong]

Correct me if im wrong but i beieve the thing about the new technology of the Protoss is that they've been given the ability to port their units anywhere there is PSI. So if there is a pylon in the vicinity of your base they can use that as a way to port troops to your base as well. The Phase Prisms don't act as a shuttle necessarily they just give a way of creating PSI in a location and thus utilizing that PSI the units can be ported in. Essentially the thing is that using these Prisms an immediate offensive position can be turned into a defensive position. Imagine having troops storm your base and when you realize its the prisms you go into to attack them but low and behold the prisms have also ported in probes which are building cannons in the vicinity of the PSI that they generate. Scary if you ask me.

[T-man]

Sorry, Peter, I wish it worked that way.
There are only certain units that can be Warp Gated into Psi, and these have a single queue from the Warp Gate.
What is understood from it is that only units produced at the Gateway (which is then upgraded to a Warp Gate) can be teleported anywhere.
I admit, it would be awesome if you could upgrade Gateways into Warp Gates and use then to teleport any already produced unit anywhere.

[Peter.Hong]

Aren't almost all toss units aside from aerial produced from a gateway.. i mean main units such as lots/immortals/DT/HT not support units like reavers/observers/etc.

If this is true then it still gives ground to the ability to rush units to an opponents base using a pylon. The probes wouldn't work unless u used the prism's transport ability i guess.


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

[T-man]

Right, but the key difference is that you can't just warp already produced units.
You must produce them out of the WG's build queue of one.
People believe that after you use the "one", it is replenished at a normal unit build rate.

[Peter.Hong]

Oh ok I see now, so only newly produced units from warpgate will be able to be transported via PSI. Whereas the Prism will already be able to carry units as a transport.

[Gorythax]

@ T-man : Do you have a confirmed source for that? Not meaning to bring you down, I'm just curious... because most people say that you can actually load up 1 unit in a warp gate and then warp it...

[T-man]

Heh, noone has confirmed sources for things yet :)
But from everything I have seen, including the gameplay video, this is what I'm 51% sure about.  In the gameplay vid, the player selects a control group of 16 WGs, and then warps in 16 zealots.  Other posters have inspected those pictures and have seen a "16" next to all of the units available for production, and this decreases by one every time the player clicks.
I'm sure a more helpful member will stop by and give you better answers, but this is what I believed, and I believed that it was the commonly accepted view on this forum.

As a side note:  I would personally love if you could "load" units, but it would seem impractical.  Loading units is a Phase Prism's job.


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

[Gorythax]

True... Either something like that, or something totally new no one probably expected : Insta-build in the psi, but with double the cost. It could be that, unless Blizz just used some super freaky speed-build cheat... Or something.

[Remy]

I've explained previously in other threads that warp-in isn't preload or recall because your resources for building those units are deducted when you warp them in.  It is basically instant remote rally for freshly built units.

I don't remember how much of this Blizzard has officially confirmed or what's the latest info on it, but that's what we've had for a pretty long time.  There is so far nothing to suggest otherwise I believe.

And Peter, the phase prism is a shuttle(unit transport) btw.