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 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.

Starcraft 2 Protoss

There are a lot of changes in starcraft 2 from the original, but most of them have to do with the game engine itself. Sure, there are some changes to the races and units and how everything fits together, but the neat thing is that Blizz managed to completely overhaul an entire game without making it a different game. Which is kind of a hard trick to pull off. Usually when game makers do sequels they fail because the sequel is just not as good a game than the original or is so different it's nothing like the first game, or they fail because the new game is too much like the first game so that not enough has changed to keep it interesting. The starcraft 2 protoss race is a good example of just enough different while remaining mostly the same.

The best way of looking at the way starcraft 2 works is to start with the units themselves. The zealot is pretty different than in the original but the function is the almost exactly the same. The zealot, like all protoss units is powerful by itself. In a straight up fight the zealot can take out 3 to 5 marines or zerglings all by itself, but it's slower than either. As a result the zealot makes a great meat shield for any stage of the game, as well as a good unit for harassment of economies and other functions. And you'll probably end up using them a lot. You will find that in starcraft 2 you'll be in far more need of gas than minerals and you can just blow those extra minerals on more zealots since they are so useful in many different ways.

The sentry is another great protoss unit. They do the same amount of damage as a marine, but include three special abilities tat make any protoss task force much more effective. The force field ability does just what it sounds like. It puts up a block that enemy units cannot penetrate. It doesn't last forever, but it has cool uses like cutting an enemy force in half or blocking them from getting away or even entering battle. The sentry ability reduces incoming ranged damage to your units. They also have hallucination, but that one doesn't get used as much. Hallucination creates a unit that doesn't really exist. You can hallucinate a Colossus to fool your opponent into thinking you are making them even if you haven't.

Stalkers are great as well. They can hit both ground and air units and hit hard. When you add in the blink ability it allows them to move up cliffs in order to escape or attack from flanking positions. Blink also allows you to get away from a zergling rush or siege tank fire into a much more favorable position - the one that doesn't get you killed and let's you wreak havoc on the enemy.

And that's just three of the protoss units in starcraft 2. But they give you a good flavor for the highly technological and very alien feel of the protoss from the original game. In other words, they fell the same, but you play them differently than before. In that way, they are just as good as the original, just in a new game that's even better than the original.