I was playing a PvP game last night, and the guy I was playing beat me (qq). I had a group of stalkers/sentries, and he came in with even more stalkers/sentries and wrecked my army. During the battle, he said something like, "learn to use ff noob." In this context, where it's long ranged units vs long ranged units, how is FF effective? Obviously, it can block units, but when stalkers are fighting each other, how I can use it properly to help me win the fight?

The theory is simple. You block off a number of stalkers and pick them off in smaller groups. A simple analogy would be as in trying to chew a whole steak, whereas using FF would be like cutting your steak into pieces and then eating it. Although, simply knowing this wouldn't make you a great FF user. You'd need more practice, more experience. People with it tend to naturally know how FF could be used.

On a more specific context, FF is most effectively used on chokes, whereas picking off in smaller chunks is considerably more easier. In a match up like PvP however, both are probably going to trap each other. In which case, the one who has more firepower simply wins. So in maps with lots of chokes, having two or three colossi with a chunk is very helpful. It also helps to have blink in maps like that. However, in maps that are quite open and spacious, you wouldn't require either of that. More likely, it's better off getting immortals and way more stalkers. Sentries FF wouldn't be used for 'blocking off' your enemy, but it would be more in the context of 'slowing' the back chunk from effectively firing on yours, and 'spreading out' the firepower, so that you deal more (relative) DPS to your opponents chunk.

That's nearly all that is to it. Next is just macro. A bigger ball wins.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Apr 10 2011, 12:45 am by BeDazed.

Yeah, if he had more stuff than you, your problem isn't a lack of Forcefield use, it's a lack of macro. 3gate robo with a little macro wouldn't have had a problem with a stalker/sentry combo. However, as BeDazed said, FF is best used to block an opponent's army at a choke. The idea in your case would have been to retreat through a good choke, then forcefield off most of it behind you, leaving a hole just about big enough for a stalker or two to squeeze through. Depending on how good your opponent's micro was, you would then pick off the stalkers as they squeezed through or Blinked over, or use time gained to retreat further and build your forces. If your opponent didn't have Blink, this would have forced him to either retreat or lose his entire army by pushing them into your deathball one at a time. Alternatively, if they already have a surround on you, you can FF the front edge of their line, which will push the stalkers back and reduce your opponent's DPS while the stalkers reposition. A couple Guardian Shields combined with some good FF work may have been able to win that fight for you, but you shouldn't have to worry about micro until you can go into a fight with an army the same size as your enemy's.