[Cordance]

Whenever I watch a pro game I always wonder about some strange tactic of some kind. This MLG Im wondering if in PvT at the point when you have to stress about EMP, is hallucinate a good idea to open your attack with send in the arcons as EMP bait. The question is does this help more than the energy on potental force fields?

[xGKingdelete]

ooh, that's a good idea considering they'll emp your sentries anyway

[MazEi]

Also do consider the cost of getting hallucination and then casting the hallucinations(less FF/Guardian Shield). It can be done but rather is it really sensible?

[Cordance]

Mazei that really is the question. The problem is that the cost vs benefit really will only get shown in game play.
Initial cost 100 min 100 gas. 80 seconds time.
Considering you are looking at this around mid to late game the time is not a significant investment the significant cost is the 100 gas. I would put in my argument that the cost of 100 gas to keep a storm on a high templar is worth it. Similarly to keep 100 shields on a significant section of your army probably worth it as well. Not to mention you can use it to scout with as well.

At the moment cost. 100 energy per cast you can make 2 high templar, 1 archon or 1 immortal as bait. Im keeping away from colossus as they would sit at the back of your army and are not prime targets for EMP. So each cast is equal to two force fields.
Advantage of this over force fields is can be cast a head of time. So it is not a race vs finding the position for a good force field vs them finding your sentry for an EMP. The units act as a hit buffer on some level even if the trick doesnt work.

The plan is to wast their ghosts energy. Max energy of 200 means they have 2 EMP and 2 snipes or 8 snipes per ghost.
This makes me think that archons are the most effective use for this tactic. As they will take 2 EMPs drain their shields which at high APM will likely be spammed out. Where as high templar will die to a single snipe as they take double damage. Also having your archons on the front side of your army is not a huge mistake so more believable.

How ever the question still remains is the FF more useful than the trick. Keep in mind the tactic does not always take all your sentry energy. Nor is it to get to build sentry late game. The plan is to use your sentries left over from mid game to hopefully greater effect as with the standard death ball EMPs will drain your armies shields as well as their energy. With these buffer units you can hopefully make something that looks like a mistake that they jump on and waste their energy on them.

[EveVendetta]

Hmmm.. You must not forget that scans show the terran which units are hallucinated, so unless u spread them out or delay engaging and rearrange your units after scans go off, the terran will know which area to emp anyways.

If you're talking about late game when it's the high templar vs ghost period, yeah I guess it would help to draw valuable emps away from high templars that you have scattered in and around your main army.

Overall I feel that it's a good idea, but it will take significantly high apm (which is already spent on FFs/ blink micro / positioning of collosus / and most importantly positioning of high templars) and a nice spreading out of hallucinations / hallucinating after scans go off to use this tactic appropriately.

It does sound very promising though, and with the insane apms the professional players have I'm kinda surprised they don't use this much in 200/200 PvT fights!

[NvPinder]

Originally Posted by Cordance

The question is does this help more than the energy on potental force fields?

Basically, no I dont think so :P. With how many ghosts terrans are getting late game nowadays, your entire army, literally, gets completely blanketed with emp anyway because terrans get a flobbidy gillion ghosts. TBH i think you'd be wasting energy on sentries, which is incredibly vital, on a really pointless hallucination.

[TADivinity]

Also, im pretty sure im correct when I say that as soon as there is detection, your units will automatically Not target-fire any hallucinations at all.

[TCPLemminks]

I'm pretty sure TADivinity is right, the EMPs will reveal that it's a Hallucination and get ignored by auto-attack.

Lastly as to whether it's worth it or not, you're basically doing 100 energy for 75 energy (200 energy for 75 if you hallucinated 2 Archons and they got hit by 1 blast). Best option would be the spread before engage.

[Fr0nti3r]

just used the unit tester to try this out, EMP does not reveal hallucinations, so if you can make a few fake archons at the front to abosrb EMPs from the ghosts you could perhaps give you a small advantage,

this is all speculation of course if there is detection nearby or the Terran is smart enough to scan then the hallucinations would be completly useless. also good forcefields might be more of an advantage than some fake units taking EMPs