Best I can tell probing force is used to take regions the enemy has taken and left undefended. They cannot take on an avatar nor can they take developed neutral regions since the latest patch, which buffed the creeps. We already have incursion, which is a little slower but much more powerful, and which can be used to effect in many other situations. Incursion seems superior in nearly every way. What am I missing about the probing force?
Sentries aren't T2, so they wont do well against an Avatar, while Incursion has a Nemesis, so naturally it's better for that.
Sentries are however extremely efficient, logistics wise, and can join battle groups. They have very high damage compared to Brutes, giving you a lot of power without being slowed down. I've seen the AI using them to speed up capture quite effectively.
It is a cheap way to discourage rapid expanders who poorly defend their nodes. Incursion is expensive, and exponential cost increases discourages spamming of expensive abilities. If you can get away with using a probing force, don't waste resources on an incursion.
Additionally, there are cooldown times, assuming you have the quanta the addition of this ability allows you to drop a probing force at one location and an incursion at another to cut off two nodes simultaneously.
If a node is undefended it is quick easy pickings. If it is defended by only a single annihilator, then a swift bombing run followed by a probing force can capture the node.
This is particularly useful to take critical nodes deep in enemy territory to disconnect the rest of the network from your enemy starving the opposition of much needed resources. Even if they retake the node(s), the lost resources for the brief period could leave them in a serious disadvantage.
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