Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy part 2

We looked at a few of the things you're going to have to keep in mind when it comes to starcraft 2 protoss gameplay in part 1. Now let's look a bit more precisely at builds so that you have an better idea of what starcraft 2 protoss gameplay looks like from the inside. Of course, we just don't have enough space here to give you a complete strategy, but there are some excellent guides available to give you all the nitty gritty details.

The nice thing about protoss if you like to micro is that the standard opener is pretty simple to handle on a macro level. With fewer decisions to make everything becomes how you use your smaller unit numbers to defeat your enemy who is probably massing lots of bad guys against you (especially zerg). So the standard opener goes like this:

Probe, Probe, Probe -> Build Pylon

Chrono Nexus, Probe, Probe

10-12 supply, Gateway

That's pretty much all there is to it. Once your gateway is up all that's really left is tactical decisions based on expanding and unit choices or upgrades to counter what your opponent is doing. Effective scouting is a must for protoss strategies of any kind to work well. You have to be able to see what your opponent is up to and try to move before he does so that you have time to get your (typically) slower units into play against his weaker (normally) forces and stomp them out.

One build that will get you shooting up the competition ladders is called a 4 gate push. You won't see it all that much in platinum and diamond leagues, because the players are good enough to know how to stop it with highly coordinated and precisely executed micro, but for anyone who is short of very very good, it's really hard to stop a protoss player who is good at a 4 gate push.

Start just like we outlined before and then go for a cybernetics core. Build one assimilator after that and warp gate tech research as soon as the core is done. Then build a few more probes while the assimilator is finishing and get them working. At 150 minerals after this grab 3 gateways and after that it's just zealots, stalkers and 2 or 3 sentries while the warp gate tech is finishing up. By the time you can use the warp gates you have a nice little army to send through it. This whole time you need to be scouting and get a pylon close to to his main base while not letting him find your extra gateways. If you can get a gate close to both the natural and an expansion you've pretty much won. Pop through one gate and hammer away for a bit, then when you start taking to much of a beating just hop through to the other base and wipe it out.

And that's kind of what protoss strategy is all about. With shields you can use the warp gates to get right up close to an enemy base, run in and fire away while your shields hold and then warp to another location. He will be pulling troops to fight off your attack in one spot, but before he can do much more than break through your shields you can be in another spot where there are little to no troops or reinforcements. It takes a lot of good micro to do this, but if you get it down it's hard to stop.

Starcraft 2 Strategies

I almost hate to tell you this, but I'm not really very good at PvP games. At least, i wasn't until I drew on a lesson I had learned much earlier in life in an entirely different game. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even a computer game at all. For a while I thought I wasn't all that good at RTSG's like starcraft because I'm getting over the hill. You know, old guys just get whipped by young studs right? That should be hogwash in a strategy game. It's not all about how fast you can push buttons in weird combinations and it certainly has nothing to do with how much I can bench press. It does have a lot to do with how fast you can think, and I should have an advantage there - older and wiser you know? And that's how I really improved my starcraft strategies, by relying on an old rule and a different kind of natural talent.

The old rule I mentioned? The best way to get better is by playing against those who are much better than you. Way back in the day I was pretty good at table tennis. Or so I thought. Then this little guy from the Philippines showed up and was beating me like 21 to 3 every single game. and he had this shot that you couldn't return - I mean it was basically un-hittable. But I didn't get mad, I just played him about 500 games. And it forced me to improve. By the end of a semester I was able to make the matches respectable, and even win a decent percentage of the time. I never did get as good as he was, but I got a lot better myself.

And that became a sort of rule for me from then on. Any time I wanted to get better at something, I just went and put myself around the folks who were the very best at it and constantly compared myself and my performance to theirs. I figured out what they were doing that made them so good and then emulated their every move until I was good enough to add some flavor of my own to the process. And it works, every single time - and starcraft strategies are no different.

If you really want to get good - the answer is to get your butt handed to you about 500 times. Honestly - play against really good competition and just grow a thick skin. They are going to laugh at you, kick dirt in your face, and all the other crap bullies do, but every time you get blown up you'll know one more mistake you can't make. eliminate a mistake here and one over there. Get a little faster at this and something else. Know how to work against a 4 gate push and a 6 pool - before you know it you'll be a LOT better than you ever were.

Starcraft 2 Protoss Strategy

As with most things in starcraft 2 you're going to have to keep a few things in mind when it comes to the differences in starcraft protoss strategy from the original to the new game. There have been so many changes that it's actually quite interesting how much the game has managed to stay so much like the original starcraft and yet be such a great new groundbreaking pleasure to play. But there are some new mechanics and things you're going to have to keep in mind. We won't go into much compare/contrast here because it doesn't matter all that much what used to be, the only thing that matters is now and starcraft protoss strategies start with these things and then continue in part 2 with builds.

First, you'll simply have to make use of chronoboost. It's an interesting ability that draws from your economy to speed the build rate of a structure. You'll have to figure this in to your planning and be very tactical when applying chronoboost in order to win with the protoss. Since protoss buildings build more slowly and have to gather up energy you're going to fall behind if you let a Nexus just sit there and wait for it to hit full strength. You can almost figure in the cost of chronoboost into certain unit builds in order to get them fast enough to counter your opponent for certain must have units and upgrades like the observer and thermal lance.

warpgates are also simply awesome and you really need to get them figured into your builds and strategy. There are five units for protoss that can use the warpgate anywhere there is a power field. This levels the playing field against the much faster zerg units since you can just "warp in" zealots, stalkers, sentries, high templar and dark templar units at strategic locations.

Next come shields. every protoss unit has them and they regenerate much faster than in the original game mechanics. Shields basically work like an extra life bar. As long as your shields are up you're not taking any health loss. If you can figure out how to micro manage your shields on your units you can know when to pull back and let your shield recharge. Really, this is one of the keys in the new version of the game. I like to call it pecking at the foe. You run your units up and blast away for a bit, and then retreat to keep from losing any units. Take out what you can bit by bit without losing much yourself - if at all. It takes great micro to do that, but if you can enter the mid game without having lost anything while at the same time taking down maybe half of your opponents units, you're almost sure to win the match. We'll go into the specific build strategies in part 2.

Zerg Build Order

There are basically two build orders for zerg in starcraft 2 coming out of the beta. There are sure to be a lot more coming in the next few months and years as Blizz continues to tinker with balance, but as of now, these two builds are what you will see from power players. The first one is the one base build, and the other is the fast expand. the fast expand is the most used version since zerglings make such a great unit in the first part of the game. They can give you an advantage that is hard to recover from if you can get enough of them right out of the box.

The one base goes like this: Drone, Drone, Drone - 10 supply -> Overlord, Drone, Drone, Drone - 12 supply -> Spawning pool, Drone, Drone, Extractor, Drone, Drone, Overlord, Spawning pool finished -> Queen

For fast expand you will do: Drone, Drone, Drone - 10 Supply -> Overlord, Drone, Drone, Drone, 14 supply -> Spawning Pool, Drone, Drone -> Extractor, 15 supply -> hatchery at base 1, Drone, Drone, Overlord, 18 supply -> Queen,

You can also go for a 6 pool build but it is rather risky. Instead of worrying about anything else, you spend all of your initial resources and time getting a spawning pool from a single drone - it goes like this: Drone, 200 minerals -> Spawning Pool, Drone, Drone, Spawning pool finished -> Zergling X3.

You are going to get attack units in the form of zerglings faster than anything else and can get into his base and start attacking before he can even get a single building built. But unless you can kill off five or six of his workers your economy may never recover from going short handed with drones yourself.

After the standard openers there are two basic strategies you can use. The first one is Zergling/Mutalisk, and the second is Roach/Hydra. the first type works best with the fast expand opener with a few zerglings and a spine crawler or two to beat off early attacks. Get the speed upgrade for zerglings with your second 100 gas, and use the first 100 on the lair upgrade. Once you're done with those two items spend everything you've got getting the spire upgrade and then past that it all goes into Mutalisk creation. Once you get five or six Mutas you can go to work killing off workers. Make sure you don't get any of them killed while you get more zerglings for a full frontal attack. This strategy devastates your opponents economy and makes it very unlikely they will ever recover while you run up more and more fast zerglings to take out whatever they can manage to build.

The roach/hydra build doesn't rely on a fast expand. Defend your natural base and send some zerglings out for early pressure. Get a nydus worm in a good spot and continue to harass while you build up a good force of roaches and hydras to make the killing blow. Use an Overlord to give you vision of the back side of his base and then just pop out through the worm in a surprise spot and catch them off guard and out of position.

You can always choose to mass just about any unit as Zerg and overwhelm with sheer numbers. The best units to use for this are Mutalisks and Hydralisks, but even zerglings can work if you can get enough of them in the right place at the right time. We don't have the time to go into all of the specific strategies for the zerg in this article, but the two standard openers combined with the two basic following builds will work nicely most of the time.