Starcraft 2 Protoss Beginners Guide

The Protoss are a race of psionic aliens that were created by the ancient Xel’ Naga in order to be the perfect race. Like most of lifes ventures, this failed, and the Xel’ Naga went on to create the ravenous Zerg. Once a powerful and technologically advanced civilization, the Protoss were decimated after the brutal attack on their homeworld by the Zerg. Many of the units and abilities seen in the first Starcraft have been changed to reflect this event, from the armoring of Dragoons into Immortals and the creation of Dark Templar units.

In a Nutshell: Like the first Starcraft, the Protoss rely on quality over quantity, which means you will have fewer and more expensive units than the Terran or Zerg races. This means that you have to make the most of what you have, and if you lose a unit, it hurts alot more economically. Protoss are great to micro with, since most of their units are ranged, and many of the special abilities are designed to be used quickly and effectively to control the battlefield.

Major Strengths: Powerful, Shields, Mostly Ranged, Awesome Abilities, Good Production Mobility

Major Weaknesses: Expensive, Less mobile units, Air units weak compared to other races.

GROUND UNITS:

Zealot: The Zealot is your bread and butter unit for the Protoss, and should be used the whole game, first as primary attackers and later as meat shields. Zealots are strong as hell, and can easily make short work of the first tier Zerg and Terran units, unfortunately without the Charge upgrade they are a bit slow, which means most experienced players will kite them around with faster units. Best used with ranged units for support to avoid the kiting, and they make for great meatshields against melee units than go for your weaker ranged units.

Stalker: The Stalker is a versatile ranged unit which does pretty well against almost anything. The Stalker is great because its very fast compared to many other ground units, and you can use it to sniper and micro enemy units while keeping out of range. The Stalker is an absolute beast when attacking air units, and can dominate almost any air unit in the game, so make use of that.

Sentry: The Sentry is where the Protoss really gets strong. This unit is a smaller ground unit that sort of looks like a Probe, and acts as a support caster for your main units. What the Sentry does is Provide a temporary shield that protects nearby units from ranged attacks, which is helpful in almost every situation. There is no reason why you shouldn’t have at least one of these in your main force at all times, especially against Terran players. The second ability is the a small Force Field block of energy that can be cast to disrupt enemy movement. Basically its like creating a small block that you can put anywhere for a short time, great to use at chokepoints and ramps.

High Templar: This unit returns from the original Starcraft and acts basically the same. The High Templar is a great support unit for your army, especially if you are facing a mass of smaller enemy units such as Marines, or Hydras. The primary ability Psionic Storm can deal massive damage to units in an AoE, and can easily turn the tide of a battle if done correctly. The second ability Feedback burns the energy from an enemy unit and damages it in the process, a pretty solid move, but i would personally just storm them instead.

Dark Templar: Again, this unit acts virtually the same as the original unit, except it looks alot cooler. The DT can be powerful against ground units and buildings, but the true power lies in its passive cloak ability, which can be used to sneak these units into enemy bases to deal massive damage to economy. Other than occasional raiding and building ganking, the DT requires far too much tech to be a viable combat unit, it also attacks and moves too slowly compared to the Zealot to be a strong melee unit. That being said, use it as a stealth unit to harass enemy bases and units, and it works great.

Archon: Another classic unit from original Starcraft, the Archon is the big daddy of Protoss infantry. You can create an Archon by combining a High Templar and a Dark Templar or two of either. While a pretty solid unit, you have to think in terms of cost and gain, i would personally rather have two Psionic Storms than a single Archon, but it really depends on your playstyle. While the mechanics of the unit remain the same, it now does added damage against biological units, which makes it ideal against Marines, Reapers, Marauders and Zerg Units.

Immortal: The Immortal is essentially a heavy assault mech that resembles a Dragoon on steroids. This unit is your mid-end game primary assault unit, and can deal gratuitous amounts of pain on enemy ground armies. The Immortal has a special ability that reduces heavy attacks with a hardened shield, making it a great counter for Siege Tanks, Thors, or any larger enemy unit. Since the Immortal cannot hit air, it works great in a combined army with Stalkers and Sentries. Since they can get swarmed like Dragoons in the first game, its often a good idea to have a few zealots to act as melee shields.

Colossus: Assault strider that resembles a War of the Worlds alien type unit. The Colossus uses an attack that sweeps lasers in an X across the battlefield, damaging multiple units, which makes it a great counter for massed smaller units. This unit also has the ability to ignore terrain and move freely up and down cliffs, which can be a huge advantage in certain situations. A good unit in certain situations, the Colossus tends to be a bit on the expensive side compared to other units, also, it gets absolutely destroyed by heavy ground units such as Tanks and Immortals. Best to use this unit as a hard counter to massed enemy armies of small units. However, this unit can turn into an absolute machine once you get the Extended Thermal Lance upgrade, and rushing to fast colossus is definitely a viable strategy.

AIR UNITS:

Observer: The Observer is the main scout and detector unit for the Protoss, and is absolutely vital in any situation. Since Observers are cloaked and can move quickly when upgraded, they are great to scout out enemy bases with, and can give you the upper hand when producing units to counter enemy forces. Since they are invisible, most players won’t realize they are being scouted, which is a good thing.

Warp Prism: This is an interesting new support unit which acts as both a portable Pylon and Shuttle. It can carry 8 units, with larger units taking up multiple spaces, and acts the same as a shuttle from the first game. However, the really interesting aspect is the temporary energy field, which allows you to use this in place of a pylon anywhere on the map. This can be used with Warp Gates to build armies behind enemy positions and even in their bases if they are too noob to notice.

Phoenix: The Phoenix is the Protoss anti-air unit that has a fast air only attack and the ability to disable ground units by floating them in the air. The Phoenix is great for disrupting enemy armies by lifting special units up in the air, or can be used to lift units up so other Phoenix units can kill them with air attack. While they are essentially an air superiority fighter, they seem a bit weak compared to other air units, and most of the time you will find yourself running away and using the speed of the Phoenix as the advantage. Since they are not nearly as strong as the Scout used to be, i would advise using Stalkers as Anti-Air over this unit.

Void Ray: The Void Ray is an awesome new unit that acts kind of like a miniature Death Star laser. This unit has an attack that does low damage at first, then slowly builds up the longer the Void Ray attacks the same unit or building. Obviously, these are best used against large enemy units or buildings, since smaller units don’t have enough HP to receive the full attack. An excellent counter for units such as Battlecruisers, Thors, Colossus, or any large unit. They can also be used to gank enemy buildings, which can be fun to do against inexperienced players. The Void Ray also has the ability to attack while moving, which can be amazing if you micro them around slower enemy units.

Carrier: The Carrier is basically unchanged from the original unit, except when you build it it comes preloaded with a few interceptors. It can also be upgraded to launch interceptors faster, which is a pretty decent upgrade. Like the first game, the Carrier is a tech heavy expensive unit, and is hard to use without enemies ganking it almost instantly. Not a bad unit if kept behind your main lines, but only noobs would mass a force of just carriers, due to cost. I personally avoid carriers, preferring other units for lower cost, but Carrier can be used effectively if you control them to kite enemy units around with interceptors.

Mothership: The Mothership is well… A Mothership, a large, slow, and powerful (not really) unit that should strike fear into the hearts of your enemies. Most likely it would strike lols into the hearts of your enemies, since the Mothership is like a massive floating target that can easily be killed by focus fire. That being said, the Mothership has a few cool abilities, and cloaks units around it like an Arbiter. The first ability is Vortex, which basically sucks a bunch of enemies into a vortex and puts them out of the battle until the Vortex is over, which can be useful at times. Mass Recall is the second ability, and acts the same as the Arbiter from the first game, warping your units to the Mothership. Wait.. lets think about this, a slower air unit, crappy attack, and two abilities which incapacitate units and warp units in. Yep, its basically a slow, expensive Arbiter.

HOW TO NOT SUCK BALLS:

Well, now that you have looked over the units, and know kind of what goes where, you should be at least Bronze league material. Its hard to outline specific strategies, because there is no one universal way to win, since you are playing against people, and not scrub AI.

In the original Starcraft, although every unit had strengths and weaknesess, a skilled player could micro a weaker unit to the point where it could match a stronger one. This is not the case in Starcraft 2, where Blizzard has forsaken micro for hard counters, what this means is that:

Starcraft:

Unit A kills unit B, but unit B can kill unit A with micro. (In general)

Starcraft II:

Unit A kills unit B, regardless of how well unit B is played. (In general)

Now im not saying this is ALWAYS the case, but in general, this is the trend I have seen.

Use Ground Units:

Anyways, so as Protoss, I would recommend sticking to ground armies until you get more experienced, since that’s where the Protoss are strongest. Protoss air tends to be a bit weak compared to other races, and gets absolutely torn apart by Mutalisks and Vikings. Terran and Zerg air is cheaper, faster, and usually hits harder. Protoss however, can dominate enemy air with Stalkers, which are basically the Goliath of Starcraft 2 anti-air ground units.

Support Units are your Friend:

The Protoss have a number of support units that are absolutely essential if facing Terran or Zerg, such as the Sentry. There is no reason to not have a Sentry or two with your army, period. High Templar Psi Storm can literally destroy entire armies if used correctly, and can be a life saver if outnumbered. Warp Prisms are also great to have in conjunction with Warp Gates to bring units to the front quickly.

You Require more Vespene Gas, Always:

As far as economy goes, make sure to get Assimilators up ASAP, since Protoss sucks vespene like no other, and you can’t win with just Zealots. Early expansion is also a must due to the high cost of Protoss units, which means mid-game Terran and Zerg are able to pump out units much faster than you if you don’t have your economy up.

Run and Gun:

Since the Protoss, sometimes called Pewtoss, are almost entirely ranged, its viable to gank enemy units in run and gun attacks. Protoss units are expensive, and hard to replace, so picking off cheaper enemy units without risking your own is often a good way to thin out enemy ranks. This works especially well with Stalkers and Void Rays (with speed upgrade), since they can move in, quickly gank a unit or building, then run away.

CONCLUSION:

Its hard to really lay down anything concrete, because.. well, if Starcraft was that easy, then no Koreans would play it. The only way to really get good with Protoss is to play with them, and find out your own playstyle. Hopefully I have outlined enough general tips to help you on your way, and if not, well, good luck. Keep in mind this is a BEGINNERS guide, which means its pretty scrub, so don’t bother spamming your angry replies because your in Platinum league and obviously super leet and everyone should know it, because nobody cares, and I hate you.

To be honest, just play a bunch of Custom Games, find out how units move, how fast they shoot, how far, how fast you can tech, ect ect. You can’t expect to be on top right away, and like anything in life, the more your practice, the better you are. Oh yeah, use hotkeys, and learn them all, but you should already know that.