StarCraft/Protoss strategies: Difference between revisions
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{{Cleanup|date=September 2007}} | {{Cleanup|date=September 2007}} | ||
{{Header Nav|game=StarCraft}} | {{Header Nav|game=StarCraft}} | ||
===Starting tactics=== | |||
The first thing to do at the start of the game is to build three pylons at the front of your base, then build three gateways in front of the plyons. As the gateways are building get some more probes to start to get gas and more minerals, Also build three forges for the upgrade of the Zealots you build. After the gateways are built you start to build around about 15-20 Zealots for defenses. '''DON'T BUILD PHOTON CANNONS!'''. Photon cannons are not good for defense at the start of the game they cost 50 more minerals than Zealots and Zealots are stronger and they move. After you build 15-20 Zealots you now have good defenses and starting position, the rest of the game is up to you. | |||
==Hallucinating units== | ==Hallucinating units== | ||
Hallucination (hotkey L) creates two duplicates of the target unit which do no damage. | Hallucination (hotkey L) creates two duplicates of the target unit which do no damage. | ||
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* Hallucination forces an enemy to divert focused fire either upon fake units or spreading out the firepower. | * Hallucination forces an enemy to divert focused fire either upon fake units or spreading out the firepower. | ||
* Fresh duplicates can be created from other hallucinations. | * Fresh duplicates can be created from other hallucinations. | ||
* Hallucinations do not produce | * Hallucinations do not produce any damage and do not cast spells, which make hallucinated Reavers, Carriers, and spellcasters very poor and easily identifiable imitations. | ||
* New ones appear out of nowhere, and players may be able to keep track of them. | * New ones appear out of nowhere, and players may be able to keep track of them. | ||
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* Hallucinated Arbiters can be defeated with a well-placed Stasis Field. | * Hallucinated Arbiters can be defeated with a well-placed Stasis Field. | ||
* Beware accidentally using this spell on an Interceptor instead of the Carrier. | * Beware accidentally using this spell on an Interceptor instead of the Carrier. | ||
==Rushing== | |||
=== Zealot Rush === | |||
The zealot rush is one of the earliest attacks performed by the Protoss. It is also performed by the computer in skirmish matches, either by sending three zealots, or by constructing the full army of 12. | |||
===DTR=== | |||
The Dark Templar rush is a mid-to-late game tactic involving an army of dark templars. While they can inflict damage, they are vulnerable if your opponent has any form of detection units or aircraft. As such, they will need to be paired with anti-aircraft (such as corsairs). This only applies to the [[StarCraft: Brood War|Brood War]] expansion, where the unit is introduced, and requires constructing the Citadel of Adun, followed by the Templar Archives. | |||
When used alone, they are good for taking out distracted players, since economic units are killed in one hit by Dark Templars and do not announce that the forces are under attack. However, detector units that can uncloak Dark Templars will cause them to be less effective than a Zealot rush. | |||
==Reaver dropping== | ==Reaver dropping== | ||
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This can also be done in reverse -- Instead of distracting with a reaver and massing an army, you can distract their forces with a few dragoons and then drop in reavers for the kill. This provides you with a better window in which to attack the enemy's key buildings and workers -- In PvP, a couple of reavers can take down pylons in a few seconds. | This can also be done in reverse -- Instead of distracting with a reaver and massing an army, you can distract their forces with a few dragoons and then drop in reavers for the kill. This provides you with a better window in which to attack the enemy's key buildings and workers -- In PvP, a couple of reavers can take down pylons in a few seconds. | ||
A great strategy when in PvT with the reaver drop is to pair a couple of | A great strategy when in PvT with the reaver drop is to pair a couple of dark templar's with the reaver, and drop them in front of a couple of bunkers -- unless the enemy has ghosts already in the bunker, it will outrange the marines in the bunkers and flush them out. Then you can snatch the reaver away with a shuttle, and the dark templars will take care of them, and force the enemy to rebuild their defenses. Unfortunately, this only works if you have reavers and dt's before they have ghosts -- which can be difficult. | ||
===Reaver Recall=== | ===Reaver Recall=== | ||
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From here you can add a gate and start massing goons (for ground maps), or you can continue up the robo or stargate trees on air/hybrid games. On non-ground, robo is preferred and is good for random. Stargate is exclusive for zerg. | From here you can add a gate and start massing goons (for ground maps), or you can continue up the robo or stargate trees on air/hybrid games. On non-ground, robo is preferred and is good for random. Stargate is exclusive for zerg. | ||
<sup>1</sup>Against zerg a second zealot is better. If you are going to do a furnace (pvt strategy for fast | <sup>1</sup>Against zerg a second zealot is better. If you are going to do a furnace (pvt strategy for fast back door drops) start a robo right away. | ||
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====Protoss Tech Build 3==== | ====Protoss Tech Build 3==== | ||
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<sup>4</sup>Gateway goes here followed by assimilator and pylon if you made a 2nd cannon. | <sup>4</sup>Gateway goes here followed by assimilator and pylon if you made a 2nd cannon. | ||
==Defense== | ==Defense== | ||
===Observers=== | |||
The Observer is a great early warning unit when playing on levels like Wheel of War when you can spy on the enemies advancing army and, due to the Observers detection ability, you can also tell if there are cloaked units. The ability to detect is also useful when attacking burrowed Zerg units such as Lurkers, this will surprise and confuse the enemy as well as prevent an ambush from behind. | |||
===Photon Cannons=== | ===Photon Cannons=== | ||
A common mistake among amateurs is to rely too heavily on Photon Cannons, placing too many of them close together in "cannon farms" or concentrating them in bottlenecks of anticipated attacks. The opponent can easily counter this by investing in air forces that can bypass the cannon farms, or by developing an antidote to the cannons such as Guardians. Either way, the heavy investment in stationary artillery is neutralized, and the enemy's superior investment in mobile units is likely to pay off. Also, as enemy units receive upgrades, the effectiveness of cannons degrade over time. Cannons should either be in tight clusters so that they can defend each other, or scattered to maximize their ability to detect cloaked units. Another common mistake is to power a group of many Photon Cannons with only one Pylon, which allows the enemy to simply destroy the Pylon powering the Photon Cannons before they have time to cause substantial damage to the attacking force. Even a simple cluster of a few Pylons or a number of overlapping Pylon fields is enough to solve this problem. Experienced players often use pylons or other buildings to prevent melee units from properly attacking their Photon Cannons. | A common mistake among amateurs is to rely too heavily on Photon Cannons, placing too many of them close together in "cannon farms" or concentrating them in bottlenecks of anticipated attacks. The opponent can easily counter this by investing in air forces that can bypass the cannon farms, or by developing an antidote to the cannons such as Guardians. Either way, the heavy investment in stationary artillery is neutralized, and the enemy's superior investment in mobile units is likely to pay off. Also, as enemy units receive upgrades, the effectiveness of cannons degrade over time. Cannons should either be in tight clusters so that they can defend each other, or scattered to maximize their ability to detect cloaked units. Another common mistake is to power a group of many Photon Cannons with only one Pylon, which allows the enemy to simply destroy the Pylon powering the Photon Cannons before they have time to cause substantial damage to the attacking force. Even a simple cluster of a few Pylons or a number of overlapping Pylon fields is enough to solve this problem. Experienced players often use pylons or other buildings to prevent melee units from properly attacking their Photon Cannons. Some players think it is effective to "bottle cap" the enemy base on fastest maps with Photon Cannons. The downfall is that in order to be effective you need to pull together all your minerals to supply this "bottle cap" defense. Also to attack you either are super rich and can supply cannon bottling and units, then you can save your troops and attack when the time is right. Otherwise, it is good to tell your allies in allied games you are going to pump up some Photon Cannon walls when you spot the enemy. The goal is to be quick and efficient. If the enemy spots you when the cannons are still producing, your done. When your done, it's good to have a good 2 allies at least swoop in for the kill. On other maps, however, a smart cannon farmer would create cannons on all levels of ground. That means cannons on ground, hills and trenches. That way, when things like Siege Tanks, Guardians or Reavers can focus on one cannon while the others on different ground levels go for the kill. | ||
===High Templar=== | ===High Templar=== | ||
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===Carriers=== | ===Carriers=== | ||
Carriers are expensive units with both extreme strengths and weaknesses. Though their firepower is not overly impressive compared to their cost, they are able to fight efficiently in large packs. Seeing as most good counters to Carrier armadas are ground based, their aerial mobility makes them excellent for hit-and-run tactics. They also are invaluable in controlling isles - parts of the map separated by water or other terrain limited to air units - because it is difficult to muster large ground forces to defend such areas. Tightly packed Carriers are extremely | Carriers are expensive units with both extreme strengths and weaknesses. Though their firepower is not overly impressive compared to their cost, they are able to fight efficiently in large packs. Seeing as most good counters to Carrier armadas are ground based, their aerial mobility makes them excellent for hit-and-run tactics. They also are invaluable in controlling isles - parts of the map separated by water or other terrain limited to air units - because it is difficult to muster large ground forces to defend such areas. | ||
Tightly packed Carriers are extremely susceptible to the Zerg Defiler's Plague spell, which leaves them with nearly no hitpoints. Carriers are also vulnerable against ghosts due to being locked down and rendered useless, and to a lesser degree with an Arbiter's Stasis field. Another big weakness is the battle cruiser, being almost completely opposite to the carrier makes it a very effective, and dangerous opponent. | |||
====Carrier Sneak==== | |||
The carrier sneak involves building arbiters and carriers to work in sync to get past bottleneck defenses without detection. To effectively use this attack you '''MUST''' have good information before building, if the enemy is zerg then don't use this method of attack or else you will lose the element of surprise, due to their overlords, and your carriers will be subject to attack before necessary, also if the enemy area that you are attacking has a large number of detectors inside its base this won't work properly. First build carriers and put them in groups putting one arbiter in each group (4 carriers per group works best), then give each group a number or letter (to do this select all the units in the group, then hold shift and press the letter or number you want that group to be). Tip: to confuse the enemy add hallucinated arbiters to the attack. Remember that arbiters move faster than carriers and aren't invisible. For added protection when playing against another protoss, drop two or more reavers behind enemy lines and take out the defense pylons leaving room for a land and air attack. | |||
==Teching== | ==Teching== | ||
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The templar tree has two uses- templar and speedlots. However, if this is early game, you can only choose one. (The leg enhancement upgrade is 150 gas and the archives is 200) The templar would be used to counter zerglings (dts, archons, and storm), hydralisks (storm), or mutalisk (storm or archons) for zerg. Evidently, storm is a must have against zerg. Against terran, this tree would be used to rush templar if they have no detection, but aside for anti- m&m, no other use. For protoss, there is not much use, unless going for a templar drop. | The templar tree has two uses- templar and speedlots. However, if this is early game, you can only choose one. (The leg enhancement upgrade is 150 gas and the archives is 200) The templar would be used to counter zerglings (dts, archons, and storm), hydralisks (storm), or mutalisk (storm or archons) for zerg. Evidently, storm is a must have against zerg. Against terran, this tree would be used to rush templar if they have no detection, but aside for anti- m&m, no other use. For protoss, there is not much use, unless going for a templar drop. | ||
The robotics tree has three units for three uses, shuttle, observer, and reaver. Shuttles are used for drops, such as the reaver drop. Reavers are used in drops, or for bypassing defenses. Observes are for cloak detection and spying. VS zerg, shuttles are used for drops, but reavers are excellent sunken colony killers with the damage upgrade. They kill hydralisk in one scarab, and kill even masses of zerglings. Vs Terran, shuttles are used to counter tanks. Zealot bombs and reaver bombs are used to great effectiveness against tanks. Observers can make wraiths almost useless, and they can spot ghosts trying to spot for nukes. Vs protoss, reavers can be very effective in terms of stopping charges and blowing through shields and photon cannons. In general, use | The robotics tree has three units for three uses, shuttle, observer, and reaver. Shuttles are used for drops, such as the reaver drop. Reavers are used in drops, or for bypassing defenses. Observes are for cloak detection and spying. VS zerg, shuttles are used for drops, but reavers are excellent sunken colony killers with the damage upgrade. They kill hydralisk in one scarab, and kill even masses of zerglings. Vs Terran, shuttles are used to counter tanks. Zealot bombs and reaver bombs are used to great effectiveness against tanks. Observers can make wraiths almost useless, and they can spot ghosts trying to spot for nukes. Vs protoss, reavers can be very effective in terms of stopping charges and blowing through shields and photon cannons. In general, use this tree for taking an island expo.e.g the shuttle. | ||
The stargate tree is for air units, like corsairs and carriers. The stargate tree is, obviously, for getting combat air units. Against zerg, unless going overlord hunting, there really isn't much use. Against terran, however, it is important. Both the initial craft, scout and corsair, can be very effective against siege tank drops. Corsairs cast disruption web, while the scout destroys the tanks. Keep in mind that a smart tank commander would build missile turrets or bring marines/goliaths, so use the web and dragoons. | The stargate tree is for air units, like corsairs and carriers. The stargate tree is, obviously, for getting combat air units. Against zerg, unless going overlord hunting, there really isn't much use. Against terran, however, it is important. Both the initial craft, scout and corsair, can be very effective against siege tank drops. Corsairs cast disruption web, while the scout destroys the tanks. Keep in mind that a smart tank commander would build missile turrets or bring marines/goliaths, so use the web and dragoons. | ||
