Community Manager
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This week, we’re analyzing:
Choke Points – Choke points are significant map features that can dramatically affect the outcome of a battle. Speaking for your favored race, how do choke points affect your play against each of the other two races? How does their presence and placement on a map affect your unit compositions and defenses? Strategy, tactics, and skill. At the heart of StarCraft II are the legion of skilled tacticians and brilliant strategists leading armies of zerg, protoss, and terrans to war across the scarred battlefields of the Koprulu Sector. Knowledge is power; the greatest commanders throughout history earned their victories not merely by virtue of strategic brilliance, but also by applying themselves to rigorous study of warfare and the tactics used by those who fought before them. You too can tap into this valuable resource, and that’s where StarCraft Art of War comes in. Are you a veteran player? Are you new to StarCraft II and striving to improve your skills? In this weekly feature, we invite players of all skill levels to ask questions, share their tactics, post replays, and provide advice for understanding, executing and defeating today’s most popular strategies. Don’t forget to up-vote forum posts that you find on-topic and helpful! Art of War Rules:
Edited by Daxxarri on 2/17/2012 8:33 PM PST
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#1
2/17/2012
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basically i feel like choke points favour terran at defending melee units, while bad at defending against flying units(mutas, banshees)...that's what i HATE!
for toss, force fields are used to only delaying the attack against terran...doesn't help much though choke points are bad for zerg units...totally useless for them... |
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I like forcefields, as I am Protoss. It saves me forcefields, whether they're behind my opponent's army to stop zealot kiting, or in front to keep them away from my colossi. It stacks their units so my AoE is more effective.
Given this, whenever I can I try to engage at a choke. Often this can even be my opponent's ramp, as long as I have high ground vision it doesn't matter. This is also why I prefer maps like Shakuras Plateau, virtually every part of the map has an exploitable choke. |
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As a zerg player, choke points are a meat grinder and a bane for the already very weak zerg units.
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MVP
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Choke points are a very important and common feature of any map.
A few things you might want to keep in mind when approaching choke points... As a Terran player: All of your units are ranged, so moving through a choke point is not as dangerous. However, when moving through with a number of units, you will have a limited number of units coming out on the other side of the choke. This means that Splash Damage units such as Colossus can decimate an Infantry-Heavy army as they come out of the choke, or even when they are in the choke if your enemy has good positioning. A Vehicle-based army has the potential to have even more problems with moving through chokes due to the slowness of the larger units, and the low damage output of the faster units. On the other hand, Terran has an easy time defending choke points due to having long-ranged units as well as tough defences. Some Siege Tanks allow you to start raining pain on the clumped groups that come out of a choke point. As a Zerg player: Choke points are a weakness unless you are defending them. Even when defending, you need some static structures or beefy units to hold off ground harassment. The Zerg make up for this disadvantage by being more capable of picking engagement areas than their Terran or Protoss counterparts. If there is a way around, they can bypass a choke point entirely and move somewhere where they have a larger advantage. In some cases, it may even be worth letting your opponent move through the choke point in order to trap them further down the road. When defending a choke point, Brood Lords are incredibly good at holding units back in these areas, due to the blocking by the Broodlings as well as the distraction. With enough Brood Lords or some other form of support, the enemy army will find itself unable to progress. As a Protoss player: Protoss units don't generally perform great in choke points due to the size of their ranged units. However, Force Fields allow you to dramatically improve your chances when defending a choke point, by splitting a group in half. Combined with incredible splash damage capabilities of Psionic Storm and Colossus, they can annihilate the clumped-up units that come out of a choke.
[TCP]Mathmick - Melee Map Design - Most Valuable Poster http://sea.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/36798 - The Most Valuable Poster program info http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFiAhu1ONKs&t=5m40s |
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forcefield :)
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SC2 maps are a nightmare of chokes and ramps, even out in the middle of the field. The choke at the main on most maps is ridiculously small, barely enough for an Ultralisk to walk down. This buffs Terran's power immensely for obvious reasons because they can abuse the terrain.
Abusing the terrain is fine in itself, but when the chokes are so small and frequent it throws balance not just out the window but out of orbit. I'd like to see wider and less frequent ramps in the map pool, it worked in Brood War. |
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Er... Excuse me. I want to ask one question:
Does the choke point only mean the ramp link both the base and the outside in the map, or any narrow place in the map?
Edited by StarOFdadA on 2/21/2012 1:39 AM PST
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It means any narrow place in the map. Frankly, Terran loves chokes due to their all-range units. Protoss are not so fond of them, but force fields and collosus/storm can power down any ground based army, and also allows protoss to forge fast expand against zerg. Zergs as a rule dont like chokes, and try to engage on either side instead. However, brood lords are good for holding a choke.
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Yep. :3 To defend the ranged units, or the ones that cast the splash damage. Ultras, on the other hand, can do fine in chokes.. As long as they aren't the ones being splashed at... |
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When I am outnumbered against melee units, using units that fire (ie marines against zealots), I try to run to a choke point (ie base boundary and gas vent) to limit the melee units' access to my forces, streamline them and slow them down. Sometimes this can increase attrition of that larger force to assist in its decimation with back up units. It is very satisfying when this pays off!
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Kind of overrated. If you move your army as one big ball and attack at a chokepoint then yes, they are important. The units in front are blocking the ones behind.
If you're making any kind of serious attack though you should be moving the units in front to the left and right once through the chokepoint so you can create your own concave. Hell sometimes you can avoid them altogether. If I 7rr a protoss player I put 3 roaches on the ramp and hotkey 4 outside to counter forcefields. The 3 roaches provide vision and the 4 snipe the units from the side. This reduces the effects of the ramp by a LOT. You could write an essay just on the chokepoints around the mineral line. From 6pool rush to late game terran drops the micro around here can decide the game. |
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Choke points negate surface area, a real pain for melee units such as the Zealot and the Zergling Short Range Units also suffer, though not as greatly
Protoss has the ability to manipulate the terrain into their favour in the "Forcefield" spell. They can change the tide of battle with just a few Psi-fields. Terran can drop into mineral lines using dropships and position their forces between the mineral patches to deal an insanely larger amount of damage against melee units than if they were in open space. Stimming marines and using such positioning multiplies the destructive power of the marine largely. Zerg players have to use chokes in a completely different way. They have to defend the choke points and aquire an advantage by using the amount of space at an opening of the choke to create a concave, greatly increasing the odds of the outcome in their favour. There are many variables that affect the way you engage. The outcome of a Starcraft 2 match could be decided by a few seconds. What you do, in those few seconds, determines either success or defeat |
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Regarding the choke points, I feel that it is very entertaining and funny how massive Zerg ground units such as the Ultralisks getting clumped up together at the choke points of the base.
Also, when playing Protoss, you can use Sentry Forcefields to prevent the enemy from entering your or his own base. For Terrans, Supply depot wall-offs are also useful in preventing the enemy from entering the base. I'm sure we all know that Supply Depots are be lowered to allow units to pass through. But chokepoints can get frustrating if your units can't enter... |
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