Offensive Phase Prism Strategy

While thinking about the phase prism's transport and prism field abilities, I came up with a way to use both for an extremely effective strategy.

What the protoss player could do is collect probes into the prism, then send the prism near an enemy base or resource center. After landing, unload the probes and begin constructing a forward base using the prism's power field. Create cannons, warp gates, and star gates under the prism power, while also, building pylons at the same time so the prism can procede to the next destination. Because pylons warp in relatively quickly, they will be up before your unit producing buildings are, allowing you to produce the moment they are finished.

Also, you won't have to wait for a pylon to be built before you can start building. Because of the prism's ability, you could build pylons and all other buildings at the same time, creating a faster way to build new bases across any map.

Doing this several times would allow you to quickly build multiple offensive bases around an opponent's base. This can be useful on island maps where air units are usually the only way to get to the enemy bases. This strategy can be used as an equal to the terran's moveable building concept that allows them to quickly establish whole bases in safety.

 

gj!! nice thinking bro.. owerup:

and also u can use leave the phase prism at your expansion and if your expansion gets attacked then just warp in your men!!

 

I thought about that, easy way for the probes to escape as well.

Since it adds mobility to the toss's base expansion, one prism could be used to help build all the bases they need. Definately is quicker than waiting for the pylon to finish before construction.

 

yeah...no wonder terran get the scv in command centre.....now it makes sense..

i bet ya zerg will get some "useful way" of expanding

 

bet so, it would be extremely unfair for the zerg not to.

as you said, terran can trasport workers, protoss get prism, and the zerg need something to balance out the new abilities. Blizzard will find an excellent way for them to have balanced abilities.

 

Zerg will get Nydus Worms. I think your strategy is pretty solid, although there are some problems with it. One, you'll probably need some form of escort while you're establishing the base. Warp in's not enough, since you can only have as many units warped in as the number of warpgates you have. Also, units take a while to warp in, during which time they can still be attacked. This can be easily solved by sending some units along with the probes. This strategy will probably take a quite a bit of resources as well, if you want to build unit production buildings as well as pylons and cannons. This probably won't be possible until at least mid-game, due to the strain on the resources and the number of units needed to protect the forward base, as well as the fact that phase prisms and warp in won't be available until mid-game. After that, it's a good strategy for building forward bases and expansions.

 

Don't forget that there is a major weakness with this idea.

If your Phase Prism is killed while these buildings are being warped in and before the pylons warp in, you will lose all the minerals invested in the unbuilt buildings when they lose power.

Big uh-oh!

 

dude that would suck so bad

 

That depends on one thing. If unbuilt buildings are automatically destroyed when prism power is lost, then yeah, you're screwed, but if they don't and are just in the "Unpowered" state, then it won't be bad. At the worst, it'll give you some time to send reinforcements there while the enemy destroyes those unfinished buildings.

 

No. Unwarped buildings are destroyed when power is cut off while you're building.

That's what happened in SC1, at least.

 

Hmm...I may need to rethink that strategy a little.

Escort will definately be needed for this strategy, as for the buildings being destroyed, I never knew that happened in sc. Mainly because I defended my bases heavily until they were finished. The concept will still work, just needs some defence until the buildings are fully warped in.

 

and it would be smart to bring in atleast one more phase prism

 

I say three would be a standardized strategy. The combined areas of thier power field would allow for a decent sized offensive/defensive base to be built.

Also while the buildings are warping in, warpin ground troops to defend the base from raids until completion.

 

or bring some scouts

 

I think the scouts were replaced with the phoenix. They would be decent support with a few ground troops.

I forget, can the phoenix attack ground units, or is it only a ATA fighter?

 

i believe that they can

 

yes, they can attack ground, it's only the overload that's just ATA. For the escort I'd suggest zealots and stalkers and DT or HT if you have them, supported by pheonix. That should be enough to get established usually.

 

So the overload is only AA. Zealots would be a great escort for any base expansion, with a few stalkers for support.

Base expansion will be more strategic now in sc2 since it is becoming much easier to set up bases where they can be convenient.

 

You should just build Warpgates and warp in units, no need to build gateways in the expos, maybe just to build the cannons faster but thats about it.

 

.... More Gates = faster production. So... yes, you should have more gates