How to force field properly? In particular in PvZ?

Question

I don't have enough practice as Protoss, and playing often had situations when opponent retreats... and I can't catch him. That happens:

• vs zergs: lings just go back
• terran: marines/marauders kite zealots
• protoss: ... don't happen often vs protoss, but still some stalkers run away when I could catch them with zealots...

Ok, I've seen how people make a forcefields line and catch however trying to escaps: lings, roaches, zealots, etc...

I tried to do the same, but it looks like I'm doing something wrong. Usually in early game my composition is stalkers+zealots+sentries. And if I make a FF line my zealots can kill caught units... but then a new problem appears: once zealots come to kill those guys, they in turn become in a range of opponent units... and are killed. As a result there is not much value to making a FF line...

Probably I should not get much zealots when I build FF line? Or may be FF makes sense only if I have MORE army...?

Could you please recommend good guidelines how to play with sentries and/or use FF properly?

Thank you.

P.S. Those materials that I've seen have just general information and don't help me a lot.

Answer 1

In PvT i basicaly use FFs only early on in the defense on the choke and sometimes later with hallucination.

In PvZ: When FFing retreating armys dont be greedy and try to cut them in half instead of getting all of them, when army sizes of you both are comparable. This works especially good against units that have low range, like roaches. Only very few roaches behind your FFs can attack your zealots, but most of the time the zerg will try to save the rest of his army instead of defending the cut off roaches. Dont waste valuable FF energy against retreating speedlings, except you can cut off their retreating path with single FF like on a choke. FFs are also good against a horde of zergling trying to surround your early-game-army in open field. Just make SOME FFs around your army leaving some space between them so the zealots can still attack while being flanked by FFs. You can practice this maneuver in the Starcraft-Masters Map.

Answer 2

FFs are extremely useful, as you well know. I actually play Terran, but I have noticed a few things when playing TvP, off-racing, and overall watching pro games.

First, is that sentries are naturally weak units. They can die pretty quickly and do not have too high of a damage output. Naturally, I'd want to keep them in the back because I don't want them to die first. However, because FFs are so powerful, you should keep them pretty close to the front of your army. Not necessarily front lines (zealots), but close enough so that you can FF the ramp and cut the zerglings or marines before they all get down the ramp.

Also, I'd say practice in a custom game or against ai simply learning where FFs should go at different entry points on a map. All maps have a single ramp to the main that only requires 1 FF, but if you miss it, it can be game over. Practice hotkeying your sentries while they're at the top of your ramp (in custom game) and move the camera away from your units. Then try to get good at double clicking your sentry hotkey and placing a FF as fast as possible. If you can walk a unit on either side, then it's off lol.

That is how I'd practice for early game. Then just try to be consciously aware of where zerglings could be coming from and place your sentries accordingly. Pay attention to where pros will keep idle sentries while doing other things.

Hope that helps ^^

Answer 3

Your zealots are generally just used for pure DPS and tanking damage/providing a blob for the enemy to chew through before it hits your more vulnerable units. I would recommend changing it up so that you have some more stalkers.

When you clean up the trapped whatevers in your FF's, I'd recommend shutting off the FF's or if you are under threat of melee units out of the FF then sending your Stalkers/sentries to the edge of FF and shooting at whatever ranged units are harassing your zealots.

You could also shutoff the FF's and send your zealots after the enemies after you finish whatever is trapped inside the FF.